Reviews Archive

PetSite is a new Zurich-based startup that aims to create a pet community. I don’t have any pets (except for the rats in the subway) but I know that those with pets believe they actually talk and so forth. PetSite is a social networking site for pets similar to Dogster/Catster. PetSite is available in a number of languages including English.

Each pet gets a profile page (like MySpace) where the pet can “talk”. The pet categories include dogs, cats, birds, horses, fish, rabbits, rodents (??), reptiles and ferrets.

This week’s featured pet is “Pepe” the cat – displayed to the right. Here’s how Pepe describes himself, “Hey there. I just wanted to introduce me quickly :). my name is Pepe and i live in Zurich, Switzerland in a nice apartment together with my brother Pepper. We are both 2 years old and love to sleep – play – eat – sleep every day (in this order). I will post some news from time to time here.” Pepe has a bunch of friends which include a dog, and a horse.

The pet profiles page also includes what the pets first day was like, what the pet enjoys doing, and things the pet likes/doesn’t like. Pepe notes he likes, “I  love to play with small balls, fake mice, my brother and everything else that i can catch.”.

Petsite also has polls and voting for the pet of the week. The site appears to be currently supported via advertising.

Online baby manager TotSpot announced the launch of Groups earlier this week. Totspot co-founder Adam Katz tells me that the new groups functionality is a step towards creating a full community site.

The main Groups are “Cohort Groups” which are based on creating groups based on similar age children. There’s a groups dashboard where you can see current activity across multiple groups. Katz noted that the groups are being utilized by not just parents but also by grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, pet fish, etc.

You can also add rich media in a group including YouTube and Vimeo videos and/or direct video and photo uploading. So far the most popular groups appear to be “first time parents” and “potty training help”.

Also make sure to check out my interview with Adam where we discuss where the idea for TotSpot came from, how the site works and what’s coming next.

Tonight at the Web2NewYork meetup, Gliider presented their new NY-based travel resource . Gliider’s tagline is, “plan funner trips”. Gliider allows you to save out bits of content from across the Web for locations and destinations you are interested in. It looks like it’s a Firefox plugin which allows you to highlight content and drag it to a Gliider folder.

The company plans to make money by mining the saved data and presenting you with related deals in the destinations you are considering. The example was if you save a variety of 4 star hotels in Munich, Gliider will offer up deals for 4 star hotels in Munich and if you book one through Gliider, they share in the revenue from the sale.

Here’s the demo video from the meetup:

Today Pittsburgh-based startup incubator AlphaLab is holding their demo day where each of the companies present their products and/or services. AlphaLab runs a 20-week program which includes office space, mentoring and strategy development. Here’s a brief overview of each of the companies. Let me know in the comments if you would like me to get interviews or more information on any of the startups.

Bueda

Bueda helps web publishers more effectively monetize their traffic by optimizing online ad placement in rich media and user-generated content via its innovative semantic matching engine. Leveraging research from Carnegie Mellon University, Bueda combines user-generated tags, existing ontologies, and semantic analysis in order to match the right advertisement to the right multi-media content. Bueda is seeking an angel round of funding.
Continue reading “AlphaLab Demo Day: Bueda, ExactBrand, iTwixie, BitBlinder, StockCastr, Resumator” »

How many times has it pissed you off when someone cut you off or parked like crap? Well, there’s now an app for that. Hawaii-based Zapatag allows you to report drivers who drive like crap. Actually you can also report drivers who drive well and/or have nice cars or interesting license plates.

You can add information about what the driver looked like and what the car looks like. Zapatag is almost like a Yelp for drivers. Photos can be uploaded as well and the state car tags/plate images are available which makes the search results look more authentic.

The service would benefit from a mobile application which would allow for photos of the cars to be uploaded. The only reason I am not crazy about a mobile app is that it could lead to some usage while driving which is a no-no.

The NYC MTA has a campaign running that tells rides when they see something, they should say something. I could see Zapatag working in a similar way. If enough people create reports for a particular car, perhaps the local authorities might want to look into the complaints. I wonder if an insurance company like Allstate or Geico would be the perfect sponsor or partner for Zapatag.

Check out additional Zapatag reports on AutoBlog and Switched. Here’s an example report:

Alright, this isn’t a startup idea I’ve ever thought of and frankly it took me a bit of time to “get it”. Cinnaminta offers a marketplace for media – typically audio or video. The founders describe the service as, “like YouTube requests with Google maps”.

Let’s say you would like someone to read a story or passage you have written in a specific place in the world. You post your request on Cinnaminta and then people in that location can pick up and perform the request. Requests are split into a variety of categories including poetry, literature, prayers, performance art, sights and sounds. Here are a few examples of requests:

• poem read in a crop circle
• write these words on a rock in a bear cave
• a poem written by a wife of a soldier killed in combat to be read in his hometown
• video some sheep munching some grass in a field

I can’t figure out how Cinnaminta generates revenue as it appears to be free to post a request and free to complete the request. From what I can tell there are requests for areas around the world.

Cinnaminta is based in the UK and launched in late 2007.

Earlier this week we learned that a major tech blogger hired a very expensive private dating service to help him find true love. For those of us who don’t have big wads of cash, a new startup has launched to help make it easier to search a variety of dating sites at once to help you find the perfect match.

Rubixx is a new startup that aggregates search results from a number of popular dating sites including match.com, friendfinder, cupid, lavalife, american singles and millionairematch. It appears that they send affiliate codes across for their business model.

The Rubixx home page (also the search page) is a bit confusing. It takes on a mad libs feel but as a user I didn’t know where to click – took a bit to figure out but the search worked fine once I realized where to click. The search results page uses dynamic components so multiple pages load very quickly and refining the search also is a swift process.

Once you select the person of your dreams, Rubixx pops open a window explaining that you may need to complete your search again on the dating site (wtf?) and then sends you off. When I selected a woman from Match.com and reached the Match.com site, I was forced to create a membership – no peeking was allowed.

The site says they have 11 million active members – my guess is thats not actual active users of Rubixx – but instead a total pool they have to search from. Now I am off to finally find the perfect Mrs. Stern!