by Julie Blaustein

What is a start up company to do that is on a limited marketing budget or perhaps even overseas planning to launch? Why not enter to win the Web 2.0 Expo’s Launch Pad where they will receive instant and incredible amounts of exposure of their products or services to the Web 2.0 market. That is exactly what over 80 companies did but only 6 finalists were chosen to present before a panel of judges and were voted by the audience to be the winner. On Wednesday, May 5th. at the Web 2.0 Expo, the six finalist had just five minutes to present their company and if they went over that time they were gonged. Three judges included Ellen Park, VP of Marketing at Elance, Brian Singerman is a Principal at Founders Fund and Marshall Kirkpatrick is the lead writer at ReadWriteWeb.com and previously with Tech Crunch provided instant feedback and questions on the spot. Brady Forrest, Web 2.0 Expo Co-Chair, hosted the program.

Based on the people’s choice as determined by the audience’s clapping volume, the winner was Rhomobile. They create cross-platform native applications for all major smartphones with Rhodes, the open-source smartphone app framework. Along with RhoHub, the first hosted development as a service for mobile and RhoSync, a standalone server that keeps enterprise application data current and available on users’ smartphones, Rhomobile’s suite of products provide a complete mobility solution for businesses of all sizes.

The Finalists:
AskYourTargetMarket.com is the web’s first self-service online survey tool that includes a built-in consumer panel to fulfill all your market research studies on demand. No phone calls no delays, this pay-as-you-go service starts at only $29.95 and takes just a few hours to get delivered. This is an an offer that will save you or your company major money and will gather you serious market research.

Pearltrees came all the way from France to compete, is a social curation and discovery tool and that gives users a social way to organize, discover and share stuff they like on the Web.

Strings is an online service that empowers users to effortlessly discover interesting and relevant content. Users of strings.com automatically track their interests, share their tastes with friends, and discover new content based on their expressed personality. The Strings platform enables a new generation of discovery applications that can leverage the power of Strings to help users discover content both on and off the web.

Stupeflix is an automated video creation web service. It is unique in its ability to create highly produced video in real-time, at high volumes, with a highly programmable R/W API. With the Play Platform, Stupeflix makes it easy for any website to instantly transform its content into broadcast quality videos.

EnglEasy is the winner of StartUp Weekend which impressively only came into existence a few days before the contest. This is an Online Game solution that helps teach children English. Through advanced analytics and Fun games, they hope to Improve Learning through Play. With a little bit more time to develop their strategy they may have gone further in the contest.

More Pictures of Launch Pad here!

The Winner of Launch Pad: Adam Blum of Rhomobile

Mike Courtney of AskYourTargetMarket.com

Francois Rocaboy of Pearltrees

Edward Balassanian of Strings

Jeff Boudier of Stupeflix

Ahmed Siddiqui of Engleasy

Post and video by Miiko Mentz

Today concludes our video coverage of Web 2.0 Expo with a final interview with IBM. Of course IBM is certainly not the first company you think of when you think Web 2.0, but like last year’s Web 2.0 Expo, the show was filled with many startups and sprinkled with a few big players. This year’s big companies were IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and a few others. And much of the buzz was around ‘doing more with less’ through collaboration and cloud computing.

Cloud computing is all the rage these days and IBM is trying to get in on the action. At the end of last month, IBM announced an initiative dubbed “Open Cloud Manifesto” that calls for open standards to promote cloud computing. There’s a host of companies backing the manifesto, but oddly, the pioneers and leaders in cloud computing are absent.

According to Reuters, Amazon is reviewing the plan, Google has decided not to support it and Salesforce.com hasn’t publicly spoken on the matter yet. Also, Microsoft has publicly criticized IBM’s efforts.

On a lighter note, Bubblicious Reporter Jolie O’Dell spoke with Kathy M. Mandelstein, marketing director at IBM Software Group, IBM Rational Software and WW Programs, Events and Web, about cloud computing, LotusLive, and Rational AppScan. IBM’s overall theme at Web 2.0 Expo was “Smart Work” and helping people and businesses to work smarter through collaboration and collective intelligence. Hear what Mandelstein had to say:

In addition to IBM, the Bubblicious team talked with a few other companies offering social computing applications and services. If you missed any of our interviews from earlier this week, check them out: ooVoo, MindTouch, Topix, chi.mp, and our Web 2.0 Expo highlight reel.

Post and video by Miiko Mentz

Chi.mp launched into public beta last week during Web 2.0 Expo, and in the true spirit of lobbyconing, we caught up with Chi.mp’s CTO in the halls of San Francisco’s Moscone Center where Web 2.0 Expo was held. Bubblicious Reporter Jolie O’Dell spoke with Anthony Eden, CTO of chi.mp, about their launch.

Chi.mp helps you manage your online identity and enables you to bring together your digital life into one place. So instead of having invite people to each of your online accounts, such as Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google, Yahoo, etc., Chi.mp enables you to pull all those services into one place that’s owned by you under your own domain name. This makes it easy to share and control your online identity.

In addition, Chi.mp enables you to have different personas, such as one for work, one for family and friends, and another for the general public. This allows you to control what others see and helps you better protect sensitive information, such as your home address, or images that you may only want your friends or family to see and not your boss, co-workers or the general public.

To learn more watch our interview with Chi.mp’s CTO Anthony Eden and grab your free .mp domain name before somebody else does. See Eden’s .mp site at anthony.mp and if you want to check out mine, I’m at MiikoMentz.mp and I also grabbed Miiko.mp. Now I just need to decide which one to populate and promote.

In addition to Chi.mp, the Bubblicious team talked with a few other companies offering social computing applications and services. If you missed our other interviews earlier this week, check them out: ooVoo, MindTouch, Topix and our Web 2.0 Expo highlight reel. Stay tuned tomorrow for our final Web 2.0 Expo interview with IBM.

Post and video by Miiko Mentz

At Web 2.0 Expo last week, Bubblicious Reporter Jolie O’Dell spoke with Topix CEO Chris Tolles. Topix is a leading Internet news community that connects people on a local level to the news and events in their towns and cities, and it provides a place for people to discuss the news that matters most to them. With newspaper advertising shrinking and becoming less effective, local businesses are turning to other sources, such as Topix, to connect with customers.

Topix is becoming a great avenue for businesses that are dependent on local customers, such as restaurants, salons and spas, car dealerships, attorneys, doctors and other neighborhood-type businesses. However, many of these small business owners aren’t well versed in SEO practices or search advertising, but need to advertise online to drive customers into their stores, restaurants and local offices.

At Web 2.0 Expo last week, Tolles talked about Topix’s newly released services that are helping these types of businesses connect to a local audience in a local context. Check out our interview with Tolles:

In addition to Topix, the Bubblicious team talked with a few other companies offering social computing applications and services. If you missed our highlight reel or other interviews, check them out: ooVoo and MindTouch. Stay tuned all week for the full interviews with each company. Tomorrow’s video interview is with chi.mp.

Post and video by Miiko Mentz

In the spirit of Che Guevara, MindTouch rallied the crowd at Web 2.0 Expo last week with its social enterprise collaboration revolution. Bubblicious Reporter Jolie O’Dell caught up with the MindTouch team to learn about the newly launched MindTouch 2009, an enhanced developer platform for building rich collaborative applications and communities, and a new bi-directional message bus that further extends MindTouch’s powerful collaborative capabilities.

MindTouch Marketing Manager Sarah Carr explains how MindTouch is revolutionizing the way people and businesses collaborate using MindTouch’s open source enterprise collaboration platform; and MindTouch Sales Engineer Mike Diliberto talks about the new MindTouch 2009. Check it out:

In addition to MindTouch, the Bubblicious team talked with a few other companies offering social computing applications and services. If you missed yesterday’s video, watch our interview with ooVoo and our highlight reel. Stay tuned all week for the full interviews with each company. Tomorrow’s video interview is with Topix.

Disclosure: In addition to being a contributor to Bubblicious, I also work at FutureWorks where one of my clients is MindTouch, which I’ve chosen to include in my coverage of Web 2.0 Expo due to them being an exhibitor and fitting the focus of our coverage.

Post and video by Miiko Mentz

At last week’s Web 2.0 Expo we caught up with ooVoo, a company that enables people to connect, collaborate and communicate in real-time through online video. Bubblicious Reporter Jolie O’Dell spoke with Tom Herman, VP of product marketing at ooVoo, about their core products and their new open API that allows developers to build customized applications and widgets for use within the ooVoo platform.

ooVoo enables people to have video chats with up to six people on camera and another six people by audio, as well as screen-sharing capabilities. ooVoo competes against more established players such as Logitech’s SightSpeed, and is an alternative for businesses who cannot afford the higher end solutions such as Cisco’s TelePresence.

Developers interested in building a video app on the ooVoo platform should participate in ooVoo’s developer contest where he or she can win $2,500 by building a creative video widget and embedding it on their personal or company site. Video is a powerful medium and it’s one more way to communicate with readers, viewers, customers, partners, colleagues, etc. Check out our interview with ooVoo:

In addition to ooVoo, the Bubblicious team talked with a few other companies offering social computing applications and services. If you missed yesterday’s video, watch our highlight reel and stay tuned all week for the full interviews with each company. Tomorrow’s video interview is with MindTouch.

Post and video by Miiko Mentz (Special thanks to Jolie O’Dell, Bubblicious on-camera reporter)

Web 2.0 Expo 2009 wrapped on Friday afternoon after delivering four days of presentations and demonstrations mostly focused on being agile in uncertain times. Everyone is feeling the pinch of ‘having to do more with less’ due to declining sales, staff reductions and budget cuts, so this year’s Web 2.0 Expo’s theme of “The Power of Less” fit the climate and mood like a glove.

Even if the economy hadn’t tanked, the Web 2.0 hype was overdue for its own market correction because there was clearly too many startups touting useless apps that only added to the noise and didn’t provide real value. At this year’s Web 2.0 Expo, attendees were focused on the ideas and solutions that will translate into real value and ultimately sales.

As Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s business division, explained to attendees in an on-stage interview with Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, consumer elements of Web 2.0 are being translated and brought into the business setting and are being combined with the data and social graphs that reside within an enterprise to provide real value. He goes on to explain how companies are “translating that value into something customers are willing to pay for.” He’s correct in saying that because at the end of the day that’s exactly what needs to transpire.

Companies need to create products that people want and focus on delivering value that people are willing to pay for. Not an easy feat, but if you can achieve this then you stand a pretty good chance at surviving, if not flourishing, in these uncertain times.

The Bubblicious team decided to talk with a few companies in both the business and consumer space that offer social computing applications and services that deliver efficiency, increased productivity, streamlined workflow that connect people to each other and the information they seek. Watch our highlight reel below and stay tuned all week for the full interviews with each company:

• Monday: ooVoo
• Tuesday: MindTouch
• Wednesday: Topix
• Thursday: chi.mp
• Friday: IBM
  

Disclosure: In addition to being a contributor to Bubblicious, I also work at FutureWorks where one of my clients is MindTouch, which I’ve chosen to include in my Web 2.0 Expo coverage due to them being an exhibitor and fitting the focus of my coverage.

By Julie Blaustein

Its the 3rd day of the Web 2.0 Expo. You would think the scene would start to chill but instead the momentum has picked up. Its more crowded, there are great keynotes and so many great sessions, its a major head ache to choose which session to attend; not the worst problem to encounter at an expo of course. The Expo was packed, especially when the booths turned into bars with free alcohol for the Expo web crawl. Numerous languages were spoken due to the many international attendees and many vendors hailed from other countries. The folks from Ghost, from Palestine and Israel, provide a Global Hosted Operating System. This is a Virtual Computer (VC) service that includes a personal desktop, files and applications, available from any browser or mobile phone. Even more fascinating than their technology is the fact that they are a collaboration of an Israeli and Palestinian team, working together and backed by Benchmark despite the differences in their countries.

I attended Launch Pad where 5 start up companies competed through real time voting to win the approval of the audience. It was moderated by John Batelle of Federated Media. It was great to have the founder of not only Wired Magazine but the Standard as the moderator, but other than introducing each company, he sadly did not contribute much to the conversation. There were luckily three great judges though; Marshall Kirkpatrick of the popular blog, ReadWriteWeb, Matt Marshall of VentureBeat and Anand Iyer of Microsoft who asked great questions and kept the presenters on their feet.

It was an entertaining way to spend part of the afternoon. There was 80 Legs, a web scale application that provides crawlers to look at databases, search engines and other things on the Internet with lots of pages. It could potentially save companies millions by avoiding expensive data centers with their solution. Bantam Networks provides an online workspace for businesses. Its dashboard provides updates and features that integrates a number of social media components such as LinkedIn, Twitter and more to come. DubMeNow seeks to shift the process of exchanging business cards via paper to instead via one’s mobile phone through applications such as the iPhone and the Blackberry. Or through SMS text, anyone can can use their technology. ZeaLog provides ways for one to track and measure goals through the apps that they build for the site. The most popular apps track one’s weight or sit ups. Sponsorship is based on the community, so not surprisingly you will find lots of ads for weight loss. And, finally there is Nitobi who has been around for 1o years, but just last year launched PhoneGap which is behind their success. They were chosen as the overall WINNER. They are also a darling of open source allowing anyone to develop apps to run on a number of devices including the iPhone, Nokia, Android and the Palm pre. They plan to monetize by providing tools to build, host and test in the Cloud. After the session I tried to decied where to go next. Go to my Flickr page to see the many more options at the Web 2.0 Expo.