Techrunch40: Session 2 - Mobile and Communications

Session #2 is the mobile and communications startups. Remember this post is live until I note POST CONCLUDES.

Cubic Telecom

• Removes the roaming "ripoff"
• Displays their directors cell showing a $1,400 cell bill in a month
• the cell industry will screw anybody
• The demo shows a cell with a sim card that you can add numbers live
• stick as many numbers on your sim as you want

Yap

• We speech enable teh Web
• All your speeches belong to us
• some kind of speech recognition insie a text chat - but the demo didn't work
• very advanced j2me client
• they display ads within the text messages - oh that could be great - tell your friend you want to sleep with them and an ad for trojan pops up
• they have other sites you can jump to including digg and twitter and a few others including starbucks

Ceedo

• Some kind of mobile interface - works anywhere even in an internet cafe
• He hooks the phone into his pc
• It's a better way to get info on and off your phone - all of the tools are carried on the phone
• I guess you need a phone with good memory for this
• so you can carry your stuff with you on your phone - pretty interesting!

Loudtalks

• Internet walkie-talkie
• looks like an IM chat with voice - will it work with my buddies already in aim or skype?
• they use it in their russian office as a loudspeaker
• loudtalks.com

Trutap

• brings together the social networks on any device
• they need some kind of permission to be used on networks in the usa
• they have messaging and blogging and im
• threaded discussions

Panel Discussion

Om - "interesting" - cubic - how big a business can really be? cubic - its a 100 million business - we will connect people for the absolutely cheapest humanly possible

Ryan - most people don't even know you can swap out a sim - towards cubic - how would you explain this to someone who doesnt know it. cubic man - its a 3 step process

Mark Andressen - he keeps talking about distribution

Chris Anderson - im always worried about apps that piggyback mobile carriers

Allen's Picks

Ceedo and possibly Yap

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