Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW 2009 Recap

More than two hundred companies (from 25 states and five different countries) submitted their web-based products to be part of this first-ever Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW 2009 event. Given the overall quality of these submissions, the selection process was incredibly competitive. Posted below are the best of the best of this group, 20 finalists and 4 winners who pitched their products at SXSW Interactive 2009.

 

Online Music-Related Technologies

Winner:

Popcuts
Berkeley, CA

Live Blog Post - Popcuts says that they “Make music more like a relationship.” Users can look up Popcuts and find smaller artists and buy their music. If you buy a smaller artist’s music and they become a hit, you receive store credit and street cred. The panelists brought up that this sounded like a ponzi scheme, but Popcuts countered with “The real ponzei scheme is when the money floats to the top and the little guy gets nothing.”

 

Finalists:

Echodio
San Francisco, CA

Live Blog Post -This painless music manager sits in iTunes, allowing music fans to sync their tracks and backing up their music while on the go. To use this in iTunes, users just drag and drop their music into the Echodia playlist which automatically provides a backup. It also stores ratings, playlists, and tags, giving the music fan the whole package when backed up.

Gigotron
Los Angeles, CA

Live Blog Post - Gigotron’s presentation addressed one problem right off the bat: live music does not have one central location where everyone can find out about where bands are performing. This iPhone application lets users know what events are scheduled on a certain night, who is playing, and why they may not be able to find this information easily. Gigotron says this application for the iPhone “helps you get in touch with your music.” A panelist asked, “How is this different from SongKic?” Gigotron responded “We have 40% more concert data than SongKick.”

Mugasha
Portland, OR

Live Blog Post - Magusha caters to dance music fans, allowing them to browse and stream DJ sets. Dance music fans can also rate the tracks and buy the tracks with little loading time. They work with smaller artists who allow them to do this, which helps avoid potential legal issues. The only problem that the judges commented on was that users can see every music genre in the display list, and there is no filter for which music is available to stream.

Popcuts
Berkeley, CA

Live Blog Post - Popcuts says that they “Make music more like a relationship.” Users can look up Popcuts and find smaller artists and buy their music. If you buy a smaller artist’s music and they become a hit, you receive store credit and street cred. The panelists brought up that this sounded like a ponzi scheme, but Popcuts countered with “The real ponzei scheme is when the money floats to the top and the little guy gets nothing.”

 

Alternate:

Croonr
San Francisco, CA

 

Online Video-Related Technologies

Winner:

Tubemogul
Emeryville, CA

Live Blog Post - Tubemogel allows content creators to upload their videos, and share them with all top video sharing sites. It also provides syndication, aggregated analytics, promotion and guaranteed viewership. Users can get rich audience analytics side by side with their syndicated analytics. The free product allows people to see reviews and ratings of their video, and the subscription allows them to see the deep gritty of analytics. As mentioned, Tubemogel offers a guaranteed viewership, which can be done through a cost-per-view program. TubeMogel sends a video to featured spots; if the video is clicked on to be viewed; people pay each time it is viewed.

 

Finalists:

MotionNotes
Houston, TX

Live Blog Post - MotionNotes began their presentation by stating that “email is good for some things and bad for other things.” Their product does not replace traditional media, but enhances it. With MotionNotes users can create a site people can visit for sharing personalized media. Users can do multiple things with this web-based platform, including making online reservations, personalized Christmas cards, and image slideshows. The main concern with the judges was that this presentation did state that the product is “…sometimes a replacement for email – sometimes.” The lack of clarity therefore confused the judges and could possibly confuse users.

PortalVideo
Wellesley, MA

Live Blog Post – PortalVideo rough-cut edits over the internet to cut digital editing time in half. Drag and drop methods allow users to take transcripts and video cuts and place them where they would want them to be in a film strip. Realtime plays are also available to users. “What problem do you solve?” asked one judge. PortalVideo said they solve the problem of not having to use an edit suite to figure out what clips you want to use while shuffling around loads of paper.

Spawn Labs
Austin, TX

Live Blog Post - Spawn Labs allows a gamer to play their console games via a Internet-connected computer. This also provides game developers access to dev kits in real time. Users can plug the game controller into their computer, log onto their site, access their consoles and play straight from their computer. Users can also access your favorite television show if someone is hogging the TV.

Tubemogul
Emeryville, CA

Live Blog Post - Tubemogel allows content creators to upload their videos, and share them with all top video sharing sites. It also provides syndication, aggregated analytics, promotion and guaranteed viewership. Users can get rich audience analytics side by side with their syndicated analytics. The free product allows people to see reviews and ratings of their video, and the subscription allows them to see the deep gritty of analytics. As mentioned, Tubemogel offers a guaranteed viewership, which can be done through a cost-per-view program. TubeMogel sends a video to featured spots; if the video is clicked on to be viewed; people pay each time it is viewed.

 

Alternate:

Overlay TV
Ottawa, Canada

 

Social Networking Applications

Winner:

Weardrobe
Palo Alto, CA

Live Blog Post - Weardrobe, a social networking tool based around how people wear their clothing differently, really got the attention of the judges. To give an example of how Weardrobe works: If someone saw a great T-shirt, but weren’t sure how it’s going to look on someone, they can go to this website, search for that t-shirt, and see how other girls are wearing it (as opposed to seeing it displayed on a model or mannequin). This site at the moment is only for girls. Also, brands can help “drive the buying decision” by seeing how their clothing is being worn. For clothing brands, this is a deep look into what your customer does with your clothing the moment they put it on. This site did impress the judges, and they gave good recommendations to Weardrobe.

 

Finalists:

Cubeless
Southlake, TX

Live Blog Post - Cubeless describes themselves as a practical social network for businesses that allows people to collaborate with one another about work. Sabre uses Cubeless for its employees, allowing them to network and communicate with one another. They target their media to large companies. Employees of a company that uses Cubeless can post questions to get real time answers, collaborate on upcoming projects, and create profiles. The judges did recommend that Cubeless work with HR to get incentives in place. They also wanted information about how people are sharing this information right now to make it possible for them to move from the current networking area they use to this new networking area for employees.

HourVille
Austin, TX

Live Blog Post - HourVille started their presentation by using a masseuse (aka - a persona) to show how she is struggling to get clients, book massages, and charge clients. HourVille went on to mention how they can help her with these problems. HourVille allows service providers to create their own site, offer a book schedule with booking, and allow clients to pay for the service offered to them online. The many questions that the judges rapid-fired at HourVille resulted in a better understanding of their product by many. This is pretty much a virtual, easy to use shop. HourVille focuses on the individual worker who charges hourly and needs to get their name out there.

Wakoopa
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Live Blog Post - Wakoopa is a downloadable application that shows you what applications you use and how long you use them, and also allows you to share your applications with your friends. It promotes unknown applications to people who might be interested in them. You can also get recommendations while sharing what you think. The recurring question from the panel was “How will you make money?” The answer given was that the data on application usage can be bundled and sold to software companies so they can generate usage patterns.

Weardrobe
Palo Alto, CA

Live Blog Post - Weardrobe, a social networking tool based around how people wear their clothing differently, really got the attention of the judges. To give an example of how Weardrobe works: If someone saw a great T-shirt, but weren’t sure how it’s going to look on someone, they can go to this website, search for that t-shirt, and see how other girls are wearing it (as opposed to seeing it displayed on a model or mannequin). This site at the moment is only for girls. Also, brands can help “drive the buying decision” by seeing how their clothing is being worn. For clothing brands, this is a deep look into what your customer does with your clothing the moment they put it on. This site did impress the judges, and they gave good recommendations to Weardrobe.

 

Alternate:

Blellow
San Antonio, TX

 

Innovative Web Technologies

Winner:

Ribbit.com
Mountain View, CA

Live Blog Post - Ribbit calls themselves “Silicon Valley's First Phone Company,” because they feel that the world needs a new kind of phone company. Ribbit is an open platform that allows for multi-protocol communication. It is an “ecosystem” of developers who can market and sell their applications.

 

Finalists:

klout.net
Los Angeles, CA

Live Blog Post – Klout.net wants to measure a person or company's influence on the web, and try to make it more effective. Klout.net helps people understand a person’s true reach. Joe Fernandez, CEO and Founder, for Klout.net said, “Understanding overall how influential someone is only half the battle. Klout.net is there to help you with this battle." “So how do you make money?” asked one panelist. Joe responded that they make money by providing an API to companies that pay for the integration into their CRM and customization. Then Klout.net analyzes the data, “...to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data.”

OtherInbox
Austin, TX

Live Blog Post - The first interaction that Other Inbox took when they got onto stage was, “Raise your hand if you have multiple inboxes,” which resulted in a lot of raised hands. Other Inbox works to help people organize their inboxes, enabling them to better keep up with their email. This product helps the marketer and the consumer control their campaigns and the campaigns coming to them. Guy Kawasaki said "My problem is not filtering emails - it is responding to emails."

Piryx
Austin, TX

Live Blog Post - Piryx is taking a very different approach to Innovative Web Technologies - an approach through politics. taken from their website “Empowering Democracy Through Technology," Piryx based their presentation on how President Barack Obama used technology to help win the election. Piryx hopes to help other politicians in similar ways. The three products that they offer are Piryx Compliance, Pyrix Fundraising, and Piryx Clerk Portal. Politicians can use these products to raise campaign funds online, stay current with election regulations in their area, and enable clerks to file electronically.

Ribbit.com
Mountain View, CA

Live Blog Post - Ribbit calls themselves “Silicon Valley's First Phone Company,” because they feel that the world needs a new kind of phone company. Ribbit is an open platform that allows for multi-protocol communication. It is an “ecosystem” of developers who can market and sell their applications.

RingLight
Austin, TX

Live Blog Post - RingLight, a peer-to-peer social company, was represented by Brandon Wiley. He stated that RingLight is everything you need in a web browser, allowing you to share files through social media, and organize through tagging, search, and comments. They launched an Alpha test in November and are getting ready to launch Beta version soon. A panelist asked “How is this different from DropBox?” Brandon responded to this question with “Ringlight integrates with everything that you use.” He also stated that users are able to get their files all the time and make them available for everyone to get their own files.

Thrive
New York, NY

Live Blog Post - Thrive states that they are “Advancing financial literacy." A user can go to the web based application, import their financial information via their current online bank accounts, and receive a full report on where their finances lie by receiving a financial health score developed by a consultant. They can also decide when, where, and how they should spend their bank account money. The panel asked “How are you different from Mint.com?" Thrive responded with “We focus on providing actions and advice.” The twitter stream did comment on how nice the UI of this website is.

YouData
Houston, TX

Live Blog Post - The general feeling was that YouData's presentation was not as clear and defined as some of the others. Some audience members were left asking the question, “So what does YouData do?" YouData allows advertisers to pay viewers to watch their advertisement. They do say that a consumer won't get rich doing this, but that the costs can be offset. This also allows the ads to be more applicable to the consumers.

Zoomorama
Paris, France

Live Blog Post - Unfortunately, I was unable to see the Zoomorama presentation because my laptop power died, so I’m basing this off of what the Twitter stream has said, and what Zoomorama’s website can tell me about them. Zoomorama allows you to convey emotions via layouts that no other magazine can imitate.

Photo courtesy of Heather Kennedy.

Live blog posts provided by Alexis N. Karlin. Alexis is a Web producer at Forrester Research, assisting with social media activities, Web site updates, and training colleagues how to use the company’s content management system. She earned her Bachelor of Science at Bentley University, majoring in information design and corporate communications. This has given her a better understanding of how to use the Web for marketing purposes. For more information about Alexis Karlin please visit her blog.