Ajax Girl

Three jam-packed days, and 52 startup demos later, we finally have a winner for this year’s TechCrunch50. Every day, the presentations just seemed to get stronger and stronger. There were so many strong contenders this year that we are awarding five jury selection prizes, in addition to the top prize. But there must be a winner, and that winner is…Yammer.

Yammer is Twitter with a business model. Created by an existing company, Geni, to scratch its own itch, Yammer takes the familiar Twitter messaging system and applies it to internal corporate communications. There is such a huge demand for this type of service that 10,000 people and 2,000 organizations signed up for the service the first day it launched on Monday. Anyone with a corporate email can sign up and follow other people in their company. But if a company ants to claim its users, and gain administrative control over them, they will have to pay. It’s a brilliant business model.

The runners up are:

Atmosphir

Atmosphir is a gaming platform that anyone can use to create their own immersive, 3D levels. The tool works by dragging and dropping level elements into place - pieces of land, bridges, hazards, etc. To play your level, all you have to do is hit “play” and you can even go back to the editor after entering gameplay. Atmosphir is available for Macs, PCs and Linux machines and was developed by Minor Studios.

FitBit

FitBit produces a small gadget that can be clipped discreetly to your clothes. It tracks your movement throughout the day and delivers reports on how active you’ve been. These reports can be accessed through a website and used to learn not only how many steps you’ve taken but your sleeping patterns and caloric burn as well.

Grockit

Grockit is an online, interactive learning tool that brings students together to answer quizzes with other. The startup has raised $10 milion for what it’s calling a “Massively Multi Player Online Learning Game”, which takes its cue from World of Warcraft and applies that game’s concepts to SAT-like study groups. Grockit features a chat room where students can talk with one another as they deliberate over questions. They can also award each other points for their insight.

GoodGuide

GoodGuide helps consumers find better and more comprehensive information about the products they buy and the companies that make those products. The site ranks products on their health, environmental and social “goodness”, empowering consumers to buy conscientiously. The founders say they have enlisted the support of scientists and technologies, as well as hundreds of information sources, to make the service as accurate and informative as possible.

Swype

Swype introduced a radical new gesture-based way to input text on touch-screens. Created by Cliff Kushler, the same man who co-invented the T9 predictive text entry system found on over 3 billion phones, Swype lets you simply connect letters on a touch-screen keyboard by making squiggles between them using your finger or a stylus.

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In what was easily the most morbid presentation of our TechCrunch50 conference,we were introduced to a new kind of social network: Footnote, a place for dead people.

Of course, the site isn’t going to be filled with the interactions of the waking dead. Instead, it’s meant as a social memory book, asking users to upload old photos, share stories, and fill in a timeline of their friend or family member’s life. You can also tie profiles to each other, detailing how each person knew other members.

The site also offers a database of 43 million images, birth and death records, and newspapers, which users can search through to annotate each profile (there’s even a Facebook-esque tagging feature for photos).

At launch the site features 80 million profiles automatically generated for the deceased using publicly available death records. This disturbed some of the judges, but Footnote says that the information is available to the public anyway.

Panel

Jeff Weiner - Interesting technology. I think key question is whether this a set of functionality that would be used in an a social network or genealogy site - it feels like an activity chain in a genealogy site. You bring a lot of interesting functionality.. There are real time memorials created in social networks. This very information driven and there’s something to be said for celebrating one’s life in death. Which didn’t come across during the presentation. One missing thing is music.

Don Dodge- Another amazing website, you’ve done a great job putting this together. The living memorials thing, I’ve seen several site that allow you to create a living memorial, that’s one piece of the market, you’ve got elements of LinkedIn and Facebook. How do you focus and monetize?

Footnote - We are currently a subscription website. These 43 million images already digitized require a subscription to access. We can do a pay per view, monthly, or annual subscription fee. While the 80 million profiles from public data can be done by someone else, the images are hard to replicate.. We’re the only place you can find those on the internet.

Sean Parker - How do you get distribution? A lot of companies in the social networking space think that somehow they will build awareness. I don’t think social networking model exists. it’s hard enough to get all these people when they’re alive. Niche socal networks don’t tend to work very well. And it’s the community functionality, not the social grpah.

Loic Le Meur - i like the idea of social software for death because there are low customer service requests… Honestly, I find it disturbing.. i wouldn’t like to have my family exposed, can I opt out for my family?

Footnote - These are publicly available records, so if you have a social security numbe it’s already out there. And the people who would be building a profile would be you or someone who knew them.

Loic Le Meur - I would hate to see a blank profile with my father’s name
when he (and I) can’t control it. You may want to control access by family.

Sean Parker - To Jeff’s point this is a market with a shelf life. There are already big social networks, and when someone passes away, all of these profiles will exist, they’ll get put into this memorial state.. you wind up with a lot of dead people on these networks.. these networks will have data much richer than you provide

Loic Le Meur- Monetizing my family… I have a porblem with that.

Jeff Weiner - I dont know if anyone wants to be remembered as a footnote

Footnote - The purpose was to leave your footnote to history

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There are countless travel sites available on the web that detail the best things to do in every major city on the planet. But with so many options, actually booking a trip is a major hassle: attractions may close on seemingly random days, or may require reservations weeks in advance.

GoPlanit is a travel site that aims to simplify this process by generating your schedule for you. The site features a database of attractions that includes their operating hours as well as an estimate for how much time each will consume.

After specifying a city, users simply click “Plan It!”, and the site will present an iCal-esque calendar filled to the brim with activities, taking operating hours and durations into account. Users are free to customize these schedules by deleting or resizing them, and can click “Plan It” again to have the gaps filled with new activities. The calendar also includes links to reservation and ticketing systems when possible, further streamlining the process (part of the company’s monetization model relies on fees generated from these affiliates).

After planning the trip, the site produces a basic travel guide with information on each activity, which can also be accessed through a mobile iPhone app. It can also generate a photo blog on the fly, tagging each photo with your location (since it knows where you’ll be during your trip).

Other sites in the travel space that offer some similar functionality include Dave Sifry’s OffBeat Guides, which generates travel guides on the fly, and Zicasso.

Panel

Loic - I like the idea. What’s the business model?

GoPlanIt - We’ve got 3 revenue streams. Hyper-targeted advertising since we know interests, where you will be at time and date. Also affiliate programs, any time someone books, we get a portion of the revenue. Third, we’re working on whitelabel solutions for some small and medium businesses.

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Earlier this week we launched a big Basecamp update that allows people to attach files and leave comments on to-dos and milestones.

Since we launched the new feature 72-hours ago:

• 220,568 comments have been posted
• 197,003 (89.03%) comments were posted on messages
• 18,481 (8.35%) comments were posted on to-dos
• 5088 (2.3%) comments were posted on milestones

(You may notice that the numbers don’t add up — that’s because new comments were added between the database queries)

We’re really happy that about 10.5% of the comments posted in the past 48 hours were comments posted on to-dos and milestones. That’s great uptake on a new feature in just 3 days. We’re thrilled that people are loving the new feature! Thanks for your continued support.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1241-basecamp-comment-improvements-72-hours-later

Earlier this week we launched a big Basecamp update that allows people to attach files and leave comments on to-dos and milestones.

Since we launched the new feature 48-hours ago:

• 220,568 comments have been posted
• 197,003 (89.03%) comments were posted on messages
• 18,481 (8.35%) comments were posted on to-dos
• 5088 (2.3%) comments were posted on milestones

(You may notice that the numbers don’t add up — that’s because new comments were added between the database queries)

We’re really happy that about 10.5% of the comments posted in the past 48 hours were comments posted on to-dos and milestones. That’s great uptake on a new feature in just 2 days. We’re thrilled that people are loving the new feature! Thanks for your continued support.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1241-basecamp-comment-improvements-48-hours-later

Product transparency was a popular theme in the twelfth and last session of TechCrunch50, Research and Recommendations, with two companies in particular helping consumers make better purchasing decisions. The first, GoodGuide, was met with unanimous acclaim from the expert panel for its efforts to inform consumers of the social, environmental and health “goodness” of personal care products and the companies that produce them.

The GoodGuide founders claim that 60 million Americans wish they had more information available to them about the products they buy. So they put together a team of scientists and technologists, and compiled product information from hundreds of sources, that could be used to shed light on the lesser known aspects of products and how they’re made.

To find more information about a product, all you have to do is enter its name into a search box and click on its result. The product profile page delivers three scores, each on a 1-10 scale, that cover the topics Health, Environment, and Social Performance. Each of these scores breaks down into topics such as Cancer Effects, Toxic/Hazard, Climate Change, Philanthropy, and Employment Standards. And overall, they are combined into a total score that conveys responsibility of the product as a whole.

Much of the information incorporated by GoodGuide would get overlooked if it were used only to generate the scores. So the profiles also display news items about recalls and other scandals related to the products. They also suggest lists of top products that would serve well as replacements because of their higher scores in the three main areas. If the product has been banned elsewhere in the world, such as in Europe, that will show up as well.

GoodGuide has collected information about 60,000 personal care products. The company plans to include not only more products but different types as well. In three weeks, it will release an iPhone application that can be used to retrieve information while on the go. You can also text message the UPC of a product to GoodGuide and it will text you information about it back.

While the expert panelists lavished GoodGuide with praise, they did also ask about the quality of the site’s information, especially in light of the attempts corporations might make to skew the data in their favor. The founders responded by insisting that science and factual reports will trump any user contributions and feedback about the products.

Sean Parker and Don Dodge also inquired about what should happen if GoodGuide inaccurately published negative information about companies, or when it published information about a responsible company that had made an honest mistake. The founders seemed receptive to the idea of informing companies gently about their environmental, health and social issues before making a big deal out of them on the site.

When asked why this hadn’t been done before, the founders insisted that perhaps they were the only ones crazy enough to do it. And everyone in the room was glad that they were, since this is a site that everyone seemed to agree should just exist.

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First mentioned a few months ago as a way for Google to increase its video revenue and start its push for more professional content, Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy promised 50 mini-webisodes specifically designed for Google’s Content Network and AdSense distribution. And now, the video series has launched on its own site, sethcomedy.com.

The premise is simple: MacFarlane will create 50 shows for Google and illustrate pre-roll ads in his signature style. So far, there are two videos available on the site, which are also available on the “BK Channel” page on YouTube. The advertisements included in the shows are exclusively from Burger King (thus the BK Channel syndication) and there’s no word if that will change in subsequent episodes.

The Cavalcade videos can be embedded anywhere on the Web and when a user clicks on the video, the advertiser will pay a fee that’s shared by MacFarlane, Google, the production company, and the site or blog hosting the video. In essence, Google is trying to encourage the proliferation of the videos by bringing all parties in on the advertising revenue.

And perhaps that’s the most interesting part of the deal. Will this work? The only way for Google to see MacFarlane’s Cavalcade return a positive ROI is if enough people watch the videos and advertisers are willing to promote their products within the shows. So far, it has the advertiser in place, but whether or not anyone wants to watch these videos is still in doubt. Creating an incentive for publishers to embed the video is a smart move, but we can’t forget that this is a calculated risk that could force Google back to the drawing board.

Subsequent episodes should be made available over the next few weeks.

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GoodRec is a web-based system for posting and finding recommendations from your friends and the world at large. The recommendations pop up on a map either in the browser or on a phone - specifically, in this case, the iPhone.

You can take photos of the locations or items or simply add a recommendation on the fly. You can recommend and look up multiple types of things including restaurants, books, bars, and other things that your friends could recommend.

The recommendations are extremely quick to create and show up in real time. Many of the current recommendations are restaurants although some are for movies and other media as well as wine and bars and nightlife. It uses Google Maps to show recommended locations.

Sean Parker called the company part of the “Field of Dreams” delusion - the idea that if you build it, they will come. He recommended creating a Facebook system for improved distribution. GoodRec is very excited about their iPhone app.

Sadly, the site is a bit bare right now, as this screenshot of The Breakfast Club demonstrates.

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Atmosphir is a gaming platform and engine that allows users to easily create their own levels in a 3D world by painting basic elements into a three dimensional grid. After downloading a client application, users can play in their own levels, or they can visit the Atmosphir community website to play on any of the maps that have been uploaded by other users. The application is currently available in a limited beta with plans to release by the end of the year, and is available for both Mac and PC.

Users can choose from a number of palettes, including pieces of land, bridges, and hazard props that will threaten the in-game avatar with blazing fireballs. The application also includes a number of theme packs, which allow users to create some variety in their levels. The packs are currently pretty basic, but the site plans to release more exciting themes like “Pirates” and “Robots”.

As far as gameplay goes, Atmosphir seems to be very straightfoward, much like a standard “Mario Brothers” game. The player’s avatar can run and jump around each level, which allows for jumping puzzles and the stomping on bad guys, but that’s about it. Atmosphir says that the current iteration is just a foundation, and that it plans to implement far more functionality including multiplayer support, which it says it can seamlessly push to every user’s client through an integrated updating system.

Panel

Robert Scoble - That’s what i’m talking about!

Bradley Horowitz - It’s impressive. Are the games suitable to play on game consoles?

Atmosphir - Definitely, I was always into Nintendo (they’re looking at getting onto gaming systems, like the Wii)

Bradley Horowitz - whats the level of effort involved?

Atmosphir - We built an abstraction layer that makes it easy to port to different systems, port to Sony PSP, we’re testing for the iPhone.

Bradley Horowitz - I can see a business model where I make a game and there’s a rev share.

Robert Scoble - Single player or online?

Atmosphir - Currently looking to make mulitplayer, add multiplayer code on top.. The game features automatic transparent updates. If we add code, we can download that seamlessly to user… client updates automatically

Robert Scoble - Is making level collaborative? I’d like to collaborate with my son.

Atmosphir - Yes, you can collaborate. Right now you take a file, send draft back and forth.. eventually would like to design in same environmental, can also upload with edit unlocked tag.. Levels are small files, only around 100k for a large level.

Robert Scoble - are blocks interactive? Can you make it play audio when you land on a block?

Atmosphir - Right now there are interactive things we’re working on.. some blocks shoot you up. we’re looking at doing audio stuff.

Sheryl Sandberg - looks exciting.. i think collaborative looks good going forward.

Joi Ito - How big is the client?

Atmosphir - Around 40 MB.

Joi Ito - Seems like tradeoff between user scriptabillty and blocks. Running from start flag would get kind of boring… are you going to have just one category of users.. User game play… it’s going to be a weird problem.

Atmosphir - We’re interested in when people mix roles of games and genres.. We want to mix it up.

Robert Scoble - Where’s the violence?

Atmosphir - We want to keep it family friendly, maybe we’ll have more mature themes. For right now we’re taking a Nintendo approach… But a rocket launcher is on the way.

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Desktop music-mixing software like GarageBand has liberated musicians from the sound studio. Now Bojam wants to liberate them from the constraints of geography or the isolation of their rooms. Bojam is a Web-based sound studio that lets musicians practice playing music, find other musicians around the world to jam with, and lay down tracks together on the same song.

Bojam is a fully functional music mixer. You can adjust the volume on each track or add effects like distortion and reverb. CEO Andrew Greenstein claims that Bojam has “all the advanced features you would find in a studio recording mixer, but all on your browser.” During the demo at TechCrunch50, he showed how a drummer in LA, a bassist in Tel Aviv, and a keyboardist in Tokyo recorded a song together on Bojam. (Unfortunately, the song they chose was Toto’s “Africa”).

Beyond being a collaborative tool, Bojam is also a community for musicians. It is a place where you can find other musicians to play with anywhere in the world, asynchronously. Once a song is recorded, other Bojam musicians can check it out, watch a video of the original musician playing, along with music notation streaming across the screen so they can learn to play the part as well. Or, they can change the track. If a song is really good, the musicians can decide to sell it on iTunes or Rhapsody for 99 cents. Music teachers can also use the service to auction off their services (as can studio musicians half-way across the world).

One of the company’s founders is Eyal Hertzog, the founder of video-sharing site Metacafe. And it was built for about $100,000.

Panelist Q&A:

Joi Ito: Who owns the music?

Greenstein: Everyone will own their own rights.

Ito: Is it clear to the user?

Greenstein: This is contract law, not copyright law. Users will have to let others collaborate, but don’t have to let them distribute it.

Horowitz: I really love it. It seemed to me that something like this should exist. One thing that concerned me was your choice of “Africa” by Toto. I felt like I was trapped in an elevator for eight minutes.

Robert Scoble: Can a music teacher auction off their services and make a business?

Greenstein: Absolutely, musicians can auction off their services, teachers can auction off tutorials, music schools can use it..

Ito: The interface is new, but not the idea.

Scoble: Have you thought about tying it to Rockband or a video band

Greenstein: Rockband is interesting because it shows that people want to interact with their music, but Rockband is not for serious musicians.

Ito: Is this a production tool, a learning tool or a game

Greenstein: this is a production tool, also can learn. Ultimately want to see music being prodced and sold. Some songs are going to be really good.

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