Announcing The TechCrunch50 Finalists

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/announcing-the-techcrunch50-finalists/

by wave • 18 years ago

33 40 18 years ago

techcrunch.com

brm• 18 years ago

Is 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.

furiouslol5• 18 years ago

Usain Bolt

ph0rque• 18 years ago

Congrats to DropBox!

(I didn't notice any other YC companies)

furiouslol5• 18 years ago

Winners: Blah Girls, Connective Logic, DropBox, Grockit

Curious: Angstro, Imindi, Popego, Swype, TrueCar

mtw• 18 years ago

akoha

auston• 18 years ago

Popego = FriendFeed 3 times more visual.

Connective Logic doesn't even have a website...

furiouslol5• 18 years ago

Connective 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• 18 years ago

www.connectivelogic.co.uk, it's all over google!

rokhayakebe3• 18 years ago

Icharts. Simple idea, Huge need.

breck• 18 years ago

Agreed. But the Google Charts API will be hard to beat.

rokhayakebe3• 18 years ago

API 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.

furiouslol5• 18 years ago

Please 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?

rokhayakebe3• 18 years ago

It 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• 18 years ago

AdRocket appears to be a more automated version of (the not amazingly successful) Amigo (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• 18 years ago

Although 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• 18 years ago

Massive congratulations to Drew and Arash

dhouston• 18 years ago

thanks ian!

khangtoh• 18 years ago

Honestly, 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.

furiouslol5• 18 years ago

It'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

lakeeffect3• 18 years ago

it 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.

sdpurtill2• 18 years ago

Mint, 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.

axod4• 18 years ago

A social network for bird watchers???

sdpurtill2• 18 years ago

Yeah - binocular companies have been looking for a niche social network to advertise on FOR SO LONG.

raghus3• 18 years ago

Why, 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?

axod4• 18 years ago

Call 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.

bigbang• 18 years ago

Doesnt ning or FB communities exist for niche social networks? I do lot of stuff Im passionate about, but its hard for me to create a profile for each one of them.

jkent• 18 years ago

Are we assuming the avian variety of bird? It makes a whole lot more sense if we don't.

lakeeffect3• 18 years ago

i watched animal planet and this guy was bird watching and he got attacked by a bear out in the wilderness.

thorax• 18 years ago

Some 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....

Probably a number of gems in there.

huhtenberg2• 18 years ago

That'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.

huhtenberg2• 18 years ago

Ugh, Adobe -> Akamai, my bad, sorry.

bluelu2• 18 years ago

The 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... :(

jrockway• 18 years ago

Who cares about TechCrunch, though? The site is mostly where people with failed startups go to wank.

bluelu2• 18 years ago

So which sites would you chose to publish first articles about your startup when you are going to launch? (Except hacker news ;))

vaksel• 18 years ago

is 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.

Announcing The TechCrunch50 Finalists

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