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Announcing The TechCrunch50 Finalists
- brm 18y agoIs it wrong that I just want to turn off my feed reader until DEMO and TC 50 are over? It'd be much cooler if the winning company automatically got acquired or something. To me a huge conference to announce your launch is like throwing a huge celebration at the START of a marathon.
- furiouslol 18y agoUsain Bolt
- ph0rque 18y agoCongrats to DropBox! (I didn't notice any other YC companies)
- furiouslol 18y agoWinners: Blah Girls, Connective Logic, DropBox, Grockit Curious: Angstro, Imindi, Popego, Swype, TrueCar
- mtw 18y agoakoha
- auston 18y agoPopego = FriendFeed 3 times more visual. Connective Logic doesn't even have a website...
- furiouslol 18y agoConnective Logic: I'm basing my opinion on the problem domain that they are tackling, which is making it easy to write software that takes advantage of multi-cores Popego: If it's like Friendfeed, then ba humbug. I expected more from their description of "most meaningful information"
- sid01 18y agowww.connectivelogic.co.uk, it's all over google!
- rokhayakebe 18y agoIcharts. Simple idea, Huge need.
- breck 18y agoAgreed. But the Google Charts API will be hard to beat.
- rokhayakebe 18y agoAPI is the problem. I think API is a gateway but not a end result. You have to give users something they don't have to write a line of code for.
- lakeeffect 18y agoOur company in nothing more than a community based around an advanced programming interface for the basic consumer.
- furiouslol 18y agoPlease explain what Icharts does. "Youtube for interactive charts"? So you share charts like you share powerpoints on Slideshare? How's this different from Wikinvest's interactive charts?
- rokhayakebe 18y agoIt fouces on a niche market. Plus in the corporate environment I think they will be more open to using Icharts then hosting their apps on Youtube as it is open to anyone. Icharts may have privacy features.
- langer 18y agoAdRocket appears to be a more automated version of (the not amazingly successful) Amigo (http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/05/carson-systems-launches-amigo-newsletter-advertising/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/05/carson-systems-launches...). Has anyone used any of these in-email text advertising networks? If so, what scenarios did/didn't they work well in?
- PhageX 18y agoAlthough I have not used AdRocket, a friend talked to me about it and I would imagine that it would primarily be good for companies which offer a wide range of commercial products, or auction houses. Because of the variety, sharing this data and finding matches would more easily allow personal profiles to be built. As a consumer my favorite experiences with advertisements are the 'you may also like...' or 'find similar items...' services. This is not an easy task by any means, but if they do this successfully and possibly also allow consumers to use AdRocket to be used as a search or recommendation engine then they may really be on to something!
- ian 18y agoMassive congratulations to Drew and Arash
- dhouston 18y agothanks ian!
- khangtoh 18y agoHonestly, I'm not even sure why Grockit is in the list, they've just raise $8M series B, its series B, I repeat. Would the 50K matter? I guess my point is why isn't the chance given to another startup that really needed the exposure and money.
- furiouslol 18y agoIt's more for the exposure than the prize money. Mint got lots of exposure after being the winner. I don't think they care much for the prize money. "why isn't the chance given to another startup that really needed the exposure and money." Why should they? It should be based on merit. If Grockit's product is great, they deserve their place there
- lakeeffect 18y agoit should be but only tech people care about this conference, if it was done by the inquistr.com it would have been off the hook, they cover more than just tech, and that is what our customers read.
- sdpurtill 18y agoMint, last year's winner, had already raised a big Series A and were probably in the process of raising their Series B before the conference started. They donated the $50k to charity.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- axod 18y agoA social network for bird watchers???
- lakeeffect 18y agoi watched animal planet and this guy was bird watching and he got attacked by a bear out in the wilderness.
- sdpurtill 18y agoYeah - binocular companies have been looking for a niche social network to advertise on FOR SO LONG.
- raghus 18y agoWhy, do you find that very surprising? I've done some birding on and off and I know that many birders are very passionate about what they do and would love to sync up and go to a particular spot where some rare bird has been sighted - and what better way than some website/social network kind of thingy to keep up-to-date and share stories and photos?
- axod 18y agoCall me stupid, but how would it make money? It's not big enough to go mainstream advertising revenue,... what do bird watchers buy? I don't know, maybe they are so passionate they would pay for membership. It just seems like a niche inside a niche inside a niche to me.
- raghus 18y agoI certainly don't mean to say you're even remotely 'stupid'. It's just that I've been a birder so I know that this is an enthusiastic group and wanted to share that perspective. As for what they buy, they do buy a bunch of things like books, binos, recorders, clothes, travel to those places etc. etc. I have no idea if this particular TC50 company will execute well. And even if they do, whether they'll make any money at all. But you seemed to be questioning the very premise of such a site and I think you should reconsider that. Birding is not that small a niche within a niche... Perhaps a site for Latvian poetry that was written after the Soviet Occupation but before Gorbachev - that's a niche! Not birdwatching.
- thorax 18y agoSome of the demopit companies are good ideas. For example, this is the first I had hard of www.expensify.com: http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/demopit_company.php?demopit=6 http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/demopit_company.... Probably a number of gems in there.
- huhtenberg 18y agoThat's David Barrett's project. He's the guy who wrote P2P media distribution engine for Red Swoosh, and then got subsequently "let go" from Adobe (that acquired Swoosh) over some anti-DRM remarks. He's also one of more interesting participants of p2p-hackers maillist.
- huhtenberg 18y agoUgh, Adobe -> Akamai, my bad, sorry.
- bluelu 18y agoThe sad thing abut the TechCrunch50 is that it seems to be almost impossible to get coverage if you want to launch something yourself (even though it might be much better than a few of the startups listed there), because they don't even seem to read emails... :(
- vaksel 18y agois anyone else severely unimpressed by the finalists? You would think, that the second year around, they'd have many more startups to choose from, since word has gotten out about TC50.