Archives for September 2010

What: Fukuoka Ruby Nights

When:Monday, October 11, 2010

Time: 6:30pm-10pm

Where: Hacker Dojo, Mountain View, California

Bringing the Ruby message to Silicon Valley. Spend an evening with Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, inventor of the Ruby programming language

For those who do not know, Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language influenced primarily by Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, and Lisp.

yukihiro matz matsumoto invented created ruby language pic

Ruby Creator Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto presenting at RubyConf 2008. (Photo Credit: Dan Benjamin)

As an added benefit, some cool startups from Fukuoka, Japan will give a demo on some of their latest developments using Ruby!

Especially for SFNewTech members and fans, the following ticket discount codes have been made available.

For 25% discounts – Use “ohmygodsv” at checkout.

…and if that is gone

For 15% discount tickets (limited quantity while it lasts!), use “whatadealsv” at checkout.

Register here!

fukuoka ruby nights with yukihiro matz matsumoto ruby creator in san francisco sf banner pic

What: Fukuoka Ruby Nights

When: October 7, 2010

Time: 6:30pm – 10pm

Where: Twilio, San Francisco

Spend an evening with Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, inventor of the Ruby programming language.

For those who do not know, Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language influenced primarily by Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, and Lisp.

yukihiro matz matsumoto invented created ruby language pic

Ruby Creator Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto presenting at RubyConf 2008. (Photo Credit: Dan Benjamin)

As an added benefit, some cool startups from Fukuoka, Japan will give a demo on some of their latest developments using Ruby!

Especially for SFNewTech members and fans, the following ticket discount codes have been made available.

For 25% discounts – Use “ohmygod” at checkout.

…and if that is gone

For 15% discount tickets (limited quantity while it lasts!), use “whatadeal” at checkout.

Register here!

fukuoka ruby nights with yukihiro matz matsumoto ruby creator in san francisco sf banner pic

Got a startup but don’t know which way to turn for PR? Enter: Startup PR Summit 2010.

It’s not often you get to hear from the “source” of knowledge, yet at Startup PR Summit 2010, that’s precisely what you’ll get. The source is an impressive array of professionals – national, local and technology press and bloggers- ready to impart their knowledge to you. It’s a one day weekend event this October, in San Francisco with an impressive array of talent, ideal for those hoping to hone their PR strategies.

startuppr summit 2010 address and date info pic

Moreover, you’ll gather information about a range of topics you can put to use immediately, from the how-tos of pitching the press including pitfalls to avoid, to evaluating whether hiring a PR team even makes sense for your venture.  Tips like these are invaluable for start-ups, staring at shoestring budgets and a high thirst for PR exposure.

elliot richardson press conference gary winogrand photo 1981

PR could've been a lot harder! (Elliot Richardson 1981 Press Conference. Photo by the late Gary Winogrand)

The speakers are an impressive lot of writers from various publications including Forbes, VentureBeat, Mashable and more. One event highlight is getting access to Kym McNicholas of Forbes who is offering 15 minute private coaching session to guide you through how to most effectively use face time with the press.

It’s an event worth attending if you’re searching for ways to promote your company, a rare opportunity to get first hand access to the writers and knowledge, you likely need most as a start-up in any business.

Now accepting startup business pitches on a napkin…for real!! Silicon Valley folklore has it that many of today’s most successful companies were pitched to potential funders, with ideas scribbled on a napkin. With that in mind, Pitch, a competition for startups, with at least one woman on board, is taking applications for their 4th Annual Pitch competition.

They’re requesting as low tech an entry as you can get: ideas submitted on a napkin. And that’s only part of the creative requirement.

Minimum requirements, if you will, are the founding team must have a female, and some flavor of technologist, and that your venture must at least be in alpha or beta testing. Slant the pitch towards what they’re looking to fund: a company with high-growth potential in a variety of businesses including: consumer web and mobile, enterprise web and mobile, consumer hardware, biotech and cleantech. If you’re a finalist, the venture capital doors open (check out last year’s panel) and you get to pitch a panel of high level funders where the real money comes your way.

women 2 pitch night 2008 competition photo w2pitch

Each Lunch Table at Pitch usually has "Lunch Leads” - Entrepreneurial Movers and Shakers in the Silicon Valley.

Move fast to be considered. Fill out the application, your business idea napkin and a 2 minute video as if you were talking to your customer by the October 8, 2010 deadline. That gets you into the consideration pool where judges evaluate your ideas. Feedback will be sent by Oct. 14, with judging on Nov. 4 at the Women 2.0 Startup Competition in San Francisco (get tickets here). Even better, if you’re not sure how to write up your business plan, you can link here for ideas on how to gets started using the sample application form.

Got questions? Feeling Shy? Get in touch with the Pitch 2010 peeps at this address – askpitch@women2.org

Grab a napkin and video camera and start your pitching!

Why A Conference on Failure?

See the history of any successful startup leading up to it’s success, and you will more likely than not see a string of failures along the way. Because it is inevitable that any small business or startup will encounter failures: in idea development, in teamwork, in hiring, in design, in scaling, in countless unpredictable ways.

Yet conference after conference features speakers only telling you what they did right – something that can be near -impossible to emulate.

At FailCon, join over 400 founders, investors, executives, developers, service provides, and press as they share tips and tools to avoid, prepare for, and recover from the most common startup mistakes.

Got FailCon 2010 Discount Code?

You bet we do! As a member of SF New Tech, you can claim 10% off when you register to attend, with the code 10sfnewtech.

failcon 2010 forbes mag malcolm forbes failure success quote pic photo

"Failure is Success, if we learn from it!" - Malcolm Forbes

Who will be Speaking at FailCon 2010?

FailCon continues to attract some of the top names in the industry, who come to share stories of failure, what they learned, and how they recovered. Some of the 2010 speakers include:

David Pogue, New York Times
Steve Blank
Esther Dyson, EDventures
Philip Kaplan, Blippy
Cindy Cohn, EFF
Brian Solis, Future Works
Elad Gil, Twitter
Manu Kumar, K9 Ventures
Steve Hoffman, Founders Space
Farb Nivi, Grockit
Cindy Padnos, Illuminate Ventures

A complete list of speakers and topics can be found at the FailCon website.

Where Can I get more Information on FailCon 2010?

FailCon 2010 takes place in San Francisco, on Monday, October 25th (9am – 6pm), at the Hotel Kabuki

Please visit the official FailCon website – FailCon2010.com

And don’t forget to use our special SF New Tech discount code 10sfnewtech at checkout!

Bonvoy is a facebook application that makes planning group trips a breeze. Trip planners can create trips, invite their friends, split costs and manage the entire group travel planning within the familiar Facebook interface.

the pains of group travel planning slide pic

Group Travel Planning Can Be Really Painful!

Fed up of dealing with group travel planning issues like long deeply-threaded email chains, scheduling disasters, never-ending searches for travel deals, discounts and trying to split up travel costs, founder Mujteba Naqvi decided he’d had enough and went off to create Bonvoy last year.

In February of this year, Mujteba took stage in front of a sold out crowd at the Feb 3rd 2010 SFNewTech event and gave us a sneek preview of what was to come.

The Bonvoy facebook app went live earlier this week and is available to everyone to download, install and use!

How do I get Bonvoy?

Bonvoy is a facebook application that can be downloaded here. Once you are logged into Facebook and you see the Bonvoy Facebook app page, click the Go To Application button.

bonvoy fb app install it screen pic

Get the Bonvoy App on Facebook

Like all Facebook applications, you will prompted to allow Bonvoy access to your basic information. After reviewing the privacy policy, click Allow to start using Bonvoy for your group trip planning!

How does Bonvoy Help me with Group Trip Planning?

Bonvoy takes the hassle out of planning group trips like family reunions, bachelor and bachelorette parties, spring break, sporting events, and couples retreats. After you install the Facebook app, you can create a group trip in 3 easy steps that involves creating a new trip, inviting the other participants, then managing everything inside the trip page.

Create a new trip in 3 easy steps.

Once created, a group trip inside the Bonvoy app looks and feels just like a Facebook group, complete with the wall, discussion board, photos and messages.

bonvoy trip facebook boxes pic

Inside a Bonvoy Trip

Specific to group trip planning, the three sections that you will be most interested in are the Travel Info box, The Hotels box and the Cars box.

In the Hotels box and the Cars box, you have access to a booking engine which you can use to easily book your hotel and car from within the app. After you book your hotel and car, the travel info gets posted on the Travel Info box.

The Travel Info box is like the virtual travel information booth, where the trip planner and all attendees can see trip info as well as updates to the travel plans from all other invitees. With the social and viral nature, this alone makes the app so useful for group travel planning.

Who is behind Bonvoy?

Based in Houston, Texas, Bonvoy Inc. is a licensed and accredited online travel agency that brokers travel-related products, including hotel rooms and rental cars.

Bonvoy Inc Founder and CEO Mujteba Naqvi tells us that he and his team have been working on the Bonvoy app for about a year with a mix of work towards development, securing strategic partners, and becoming an accredited online travel agency.

Bonvoy is are currently trying to raise a seed round of funding.

For more information, contact Bonvoy Founder and CEO Mujteba Naqvi at 832-532-2406 or email him at muj(dot)naqvi(at)bonvoy(dot)com

Calling SF New Tech’s most ardent fans and followers!

It’s that time again! In celebration of our very special Japan Night on 10/13, we hereby bestow onto you….

More than a hundred discount codes!

Yeehaw!

Register fast at : http://sfnewtechjapan.eventbrite.com/

25 tickets are 10% off with the code japannight-isnoozed
25 tickets are 25% off with the code japannight-whatadeal
25 tickets are 50% off with the code japannight-yeahbaby
26 tickets are 100% off (free!) with the code japannight-seeyouthere

101 discount codes! See, more than a hundred… Get it? Yeah? It’s marketing, baby! Clever, eh? 🙂

GO!

Editor’s Note: This SFNewTech demo-highlights post is from our July 20th 2010 Event. Please bear with us while we play “catch up” on our shiny new blog :)

CEO JR Johnson described Lunch.com as “like Yelp or Trip Advisor, where the common bond is your common interest”. It’s a members-driven site that facilitates building communities of like minded passionate people to share and discover relevant knowledge and opinion. Using what they call their “Similarity Network“, they match you to other users whose interests most closely align with yours, sharing your likes, dislikes, and interests.

At the July 20th SFNewTech event, Johnson guided the audience through steps on building a community on the site.

Lunch.com CEO JR Johnson at SFNewTech (Photo Credit: Matt Silvey)

Using the “What’s hot?” now feature, which highlights the site’s most active section, Johnson found a book community of about 1000 people centered around a passion for books, to be the site’s hottest community at that moment. This was followed by a quick walk-through on how to register, create new interest areas and build the knowledge based communities at the center of Lunch.com‘s user model. He highlighted the point based reward system, where users can create a badge representative of their community passion, with criteria on how members earn the badge. For example, in the book community, a user could earn the badge after having read a specified number of books.

Lunch.com has an ad-network based business model for generating revenue. Johnson noted the key to success is “generating relevant content, quality content, which drives people to search for the site.” And he should know a little about success. Before starting Lunch.com, J.R. was founder and CEO of VirtualTourist.com and OneTime. Under his leadership, VirtualTourist.com grew to a one million+ site and earned honors from a range of media including Time magazine, Newsweek, and Travel+Leisure magazine and more. The three-time entrepreneur sold VirtualTourist.com to Expedia in 2008.

Editor’s Note: This SFNewTech demo-highlights post is from our July 20th 2010 Event. Please bear with us while we play “catch up” on our shiny new blog :)

CEO JR Johnson described Lunch.com as “like Yelp or Trip Advisor, where the common bond is your common interest”. It’s a members-driven site that facilitates building communities of like minded passionate people to share and discover relevant knowledge and opinion. Using what they call their “Similarity Network“, they match you to other users whose interests most closely align with yours, sharing your likes, dislikes, and interests.

At the July 20th SFNewTech event, Johnson guided the audience through steps on building a community on the site.

Lunch.com CEO JR Johnson at SFNewTech (Photo Credit: Matt Silvey)

Using the “What’s hot?” now feature, which highlights the site’s most active section, Johnson found a book community of about 1000 people centered around a passion for books, to be the site’s hottest community at that moment. This was followed by a quick walk-through on how to register, create new interest areas and build the knowledge based communities at the center of Lunch.com‘s user model. He highlighted the point based reward system, where users can create a badge representative of their community passion, with criteria on how members earn the badge. For example, in the book community, a user could earn the badge after having read a specified number of books.

Lunch.com has an ad-network based business model for generating revenue. Johnson noted the key to success is “generating relevant content, quality content, which drives people to search for the site.” And he should know a little about success. Before starting Lunch.com, J.R. was founder and CEO of VirtualTourist.com and OneTime. Under his leadership, VirtualTourist.com grew to a one million+ site and earned honors from a range of media including Time magazine, Newsweek, and Travel+Leisure magazine and more. The three-time entrepreneur sold VirtualTourist.com to Expedia in 2008.

Editor’s Note:This SFNewTech demo-highlights post is from our July 20th 2010 Event. Please bear with us while we play “catch up” on our shiny new blog 🙂

Search engines, social networks and online discussion forums represent much of what’s good about the internet, while trolls and online predators who stalk and prey on innocent victims with tremendous ease represent the potential bad.

A quick online search shows that online predators are steadily on the rise. So much so, that Dateline NBC’s Chris Hansen devoted an entire show to baiting and arresting online predators in his shockingly disturbing, yet wildly popular “To Catch A Predator” T.V show.

So how can website owners, online social networks and discussion forums control this problem? Crisp – founded in 2005 by Adam Hildreth – has built a sophisticated and effective system just for that.

Crisp CTO Peter Maude came on stage at our July 20th SFNewTech event and presented their service. Using their proprietary behavior pattern tracking technology, Crisp collects pattern information that makes a site safe, thereby protecting a company’s brand (think Disney, which caters to kids). Crisp detects behaviors, then profiles and auto-manage users to keep them safe online with its unique, purpose-built systems for MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online games), virtual worlds and social networks. Yes, that’s a mouthful, but that’s what’s needed to catch these ever evolving predators!

peter maude crispthinking cto demo at sfnewtech pic

CTO Peter Maude's demo of Crisp at SFNewTech

Maude showed us how Crisp uses specific word and phrase filters, generated by customer request, to detect patterns of abuse across every user profile on that customer’s site. If Crisp detects an abusive or spamming pattern, their system instantly blocks that abusive user’s typed entries (in say a chat room or discussion forum) thereby saving other users from the nuisance of universal web abuse. In the case of minors, it prevents the ‘grooming’ of children by online predators by analyzing behavior patterns using syntax and language style, thereby protecting children and minors online before the predators can make a connection.

And Crisp does all this in real time, with a response turnaround of about 100 miliseconds! Maude demonstrated this using a simulator on his laptop where he entered a chat room and typed abusive keywords and phrases and showed how the Crisp system intercepted and blocked those messages, and the abusive user, in real time.

Maude noted, “many web sites need to censure based on a multitude of what they consider to be their own threat vectors” and that is exactly what Crisp delivers.

Editor’s Note:This SFNewTech demo-highlights post is from our July 20th 2010 Event. Please bear with us while we play “catch up” on our shiny new blog 🙂

Search engines, social networks and online discussion forums represent much of what’s good about the internet, while trolls and online predators who stalk and prey on innocent victims with tremendous ease represent the potential bad.

A quick online search shows that online predators are steadily on the rise. So much so, that Dateline NBC’s Chris Hansen devoted an entire show to baiting and arresting online predators in his shockingly disturbing, yet wildly popular “To Catch A Predator” T.V show.

So how can website owners, online social networks and discussion forums control this problem? Crisp – founded in 2005 by Adam Hildreth – has built a sophisticated and effective system just for that.

Crisp CTO Peter Maude came on stage at our July 20th SFNewTech event and presented their service. Using their proprietary behavior pattern tracking technology, Crisp collects pattern information that makes a site safe, thereby protecting a company’s brand (think Disney, which caters to kids). Crisp detects behaviors, then profiles and auto-manage users to keep them safe online with its unique, purpose-built systems for MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online games), virtual worlds and social networks. Yes, that’s a mouthful, but that’s what’s needed to catch these ever evolving predators!

peter maude crispthinking cto demo at sfnewtech pic

CTO Peter Maude's demo of Crisp at SFNewTech

Maude showed us how Crisp uses specific word and phrase filters, generated by customer request, to detect patterns of abuse across every user profile on that customer’s site. If Crisp detects an abusive or spamming pattern, their system instantly blocks that abusive user’s typed entries (in say a chat room or discussion forum) thereby saving other users from the nuisance of universal web abuse. In the case of minors, it prevents the ‘grooming’ of children by online predators by analyzing behavior patterns using syntax and language style, thereby protecting children and minors online before the predators can make a connection.

And Crisp does all this in real time, with a response turnaround of about 100 miliseconds! Maude demonstrated this using a simulator on his laptop where he entered a chat room and typed abusive keywords and phrases and showed how the Crisp system intercepted and blocked those messages, and the abusive user, in real time.

Maude noted, “many web sites need to censure based on a multitude of what they consider to be their own threat vectors” and that is exactly what Crisp delivers.

Here are ratings from SF New Tech on 9.15. It’s like the people’s choice awards …. only geekier.

Graphs below: Favorite Demo, Least Favorite Demo, Who Folks Came To See, Event Rating As A Whole, Host Rating (Myles) and Venue Rating (Mighty).

We had 10 different peeps get on stage last night for the 60 second spots @SFNewTech.

Go here to see who’s looking for what! Track down that lead!

It’s about time we did this!

We’re pleased to announce Jobs @ SF New Tech!

No, we’re not on a hiring binge, but we know people who are!

Come find your new opportunity at http://jobs.sfnewtech.com. (Or click the nifty “Jobs” tab above!)

Are you looking to hire? You’ve come to the right place!

You can now also post your own job listings at Jobs @ SF New Tech for 30 days for only $50.00.

Bonus: for the month of September use the promo code “sept50” and post your jobs for 1/2 off … that’s only $25.00 for 30 days!

Good luck!

While small-scale artisans like Luciano Barbera are going bankrupt sitting in Italy with crates of threads in their ‘spa for yarn’, barely legal Italians exports like Augusto Marietti are already here in the United States of America, pushing the limits of their big ideas in technology and innovation.

If you’ve been coming to our SFNewTech events frequently, you may remember Augusto from our March 17th (2010) event, when he demoed Mashape – a very simple Mashup Engine that helps you create web applications without any coding experience, and that too  in near real-time! Three weeks after they took stage, Mashape landed their First Angel Round of Funding.

We met up with Augusto at the July 20th SFNewTech event, and interviewed him for all our readers who may have missed the MaShape demo. We also found out what the Mashape crew is busy doing these days and what their near future looks like.

What is MaShape?

Augusto: MaShape – imagine something like balsamic mockups, but to create real applications (not mockups). We give tools to people to create real apps by assembling different parts of components and software in a drag and drop dashboard to create your own web application.

mashape easiest way to build web apps with no coding pic

Mashape - Create Plug and Play Applications in Minutes!

So, it’s all web applications, not mobile apps?

Augusto: Not yet. We are still in private alpha, so we’re just rolling invites to developers who can create new components and new applications inside a platform.

If I have an idea for a Web site and I’ve created wire-frames with balsamic or mockflow, what do I do next with MaShape?

Augusto: In a couple of months, what you can do is go to MaShape and just assemble a component like a wireframe and then you just publish it and your application gives just an HTML code so that you can embed it on your blog and Web site. In addition to that, Mashape will give you a custom URL (web address) where your application is going to run.

If I design and publish it once, is it dynamic or static?

Augusto: It’s all dynamic. It’s not like HTML. It looks like a real application and a powerful one. You can take signups from people, log-ins from people. You can create a small Facebook type application if you want it!

Is it more like a service for creating Web sites without knowing anything about how to do Web sites?

Augusto: That Web site will run on mobile as well, because it’s just changing the HTML for iPhone and Android. We will go everywhere. Right now, it’s just for browser Web sites.

Where will the mashape app I create be hosted? Do I have to sign up for hosting?

Augusto: Everything you’re going to create is hosted on our server and our cloud computing for free. It’s completely free. Even the bandwidth is free.

What’s your business model? How do you make money or plan on making money?

Augusto: Once you start to get a lot of traffic, you start to pay us. If you are a developer, you want to bring in more components into the platform — I’m going to create a component and I’m going to put a price, like five bucks. If you want that component for your apps, you just pay five bucks to the developers and we take 20% of each transaction between the developer and the buyer.

Tell us a little bit about the company – Who you are, When you formed and what your current situation is.

Augusto: The company was founded in July 2009. We code in Italy in a garage, because we didn’t have any money to come here. When the product was already done, after 100,000 lines of code, we came here in February 2010 and we started looking for money.
We are in private alpha, so we started running our alpha in late March. In April we landed our first angel round funding from early YouTube and Paypal employees. We went back to Italy, got our visas and then we came back here again. I just came five days ago!

With that money, we plan on staying here for one year and improve the alpha based on the feedback and then release the beta so that we can develop this application in late 2010.

Awesome! Who are the Founders of MaShape?

Augusto: I’m Augusto Marietti. I’m kind of the Business Sniper. I don’t want to call myself the CEO, because that is too much for me. The other guy is Marco Palladino. He’s kind of the CTO, but we call him the Tech Mind. The front end developer is 28 years old Michele Zonca. He is – as we call him – a Java Rockstar. I’m 22.

mashape stars marco michele augusto pic

The Mashapers - (Left to Right) Marco Palladino, Michele Zonca and Augusto Marietti

When is it possible for people to sign up and start using MaShape?

Augusto: It’s now possible if you are a developer. If you have tech skills, you want to code new components, you can do that. Just design it and you will get an alpha invite in a week or two. If you are more of a publisher side, a user side, you can sign up now and wait for an invite in late 2010.

You’re planning to launch sometime this fall?

Augusto: The beta launch will be in late 2010 — November or December.

Thank you and good luck.

Backstage at the July 20th 2010 SFNewTech, we asked DooChoo co-founders Paolo and Armanda what the TOP SECRET app advertised on doochoo.com was.

Armando started to smile, then Paolo stepped in and gave it up!

what is doochoo next top secret app pic

Your Web site says that the next application is TOP SECRET. Can you give the SFNewTech fans some hints?

Paolo: The next application that we are working on is Pick One and it’s a tool to organize your inner secret decision on everyday life. It’ll be ready in a few weeks.

About the TOP SECRET app, I can only say that they’re going to target two more niche markets where I don’t see competition yet, but there is a very big need!

Only one key word to define the main topic for that.

…and that keyword is….

HYPER LOOKUP!

Backstage at the July 20th 2010 SFNewTech, we asked DooChoo co-founders Paolo and Armanda what the TOP SECRET app advertised on doochoo.com was.

Armando started to smile, then Paolo stepped in and gave it up!

what is doochoo next top secret app pic

Your Web site says that the next application is TOP SECRET. Can you give the SFNewTech fans some hints?

Paolo: The next application that we are working on is Pick One and it’s a tool to organize your inner secret decision on everyday life. It’ll be ready in a few weeks.

About the TOP SECRET app, I can only say that they’re going to target two more niche markets where I don’t see competition yet, but there is a very big need!

Only one key word to define the main topic for that.

…and that keyword is….

HYPER LOOKUP!

After giving us the insider scoop on doochoo, co-founders Paolo and Armando told us how they plan on monetizing Doochoo in the near future.

show me the money sfnewtech interviews of startup business model

What’s your business model? How do you guys make money or plan on making money?

Doochoo:We can monetize both the Doochoo platform and Doochoo applications separately. Each one of them counts with a different business model or layer — also depending on the time when we can start that.

Platform can be done in two different phases. In the beginning, we can offer a premium model for API. In the second phase, when we’ve already aggregated a lot of data, then we can also — we don’t sell data, but we can sell business intelligence tools on top of data to analyze data and use it for your business.

On the application side, each application can come with its own premium model plus advertisement, specific banners. Everything’s got to be semantic, so the application knows who is the user, which movies they like, what’s his passion, what’s everything he liked about Facebook. Companies can be ad-mob or video specific ad network.

When you say applications, are you referring to web applications or mobile apps?

Doochoo:Both, but primarily we are referring to mobile apps. I see mobile as definitely the market to go immediately.

Starting this month, our SFNewTech blog will be bringing insider scoops on the latest happenings at the companies that demo their application or service on our stage. We will also be interviewing the people behind all the cool new technology!

Our first such company is DooChoo. Doochoo took stage at the July 20th (2010) SFNewTech Event. After their awesome demo, we caught up with the two co-founders Armando Biondi and Paolo Privitera and asked them to give us the scoop on DooChoo, their unique platform and applications for opinions.

doochoo couching iphone app pic

doochoo - platform and applications for opinions

What is DooChoo?

DooChoo: It’s a platform — a technological platform with some applications built on top of that. It’s like a Freebase for opinions. Imagine a Wikipedia like site, imagine a place where anybody can post opinions and can ask opinions and can get answers. Doochoo is a public, open platform. We don’t own data. You can think of it like a Wikipedia, but much better. Wikipedia is not semantic; so you cannot query Wikipedia.

We compare our platform to Freebase — that, by the way, has been acquired by Google — we have had great meetings with Freebase and we’re really impressed by their platform.

So you can imagine a Freebase-like site with API on top and applications. We are building some applications that work as proof of concept plus we can go very deep into niche markets. We can power up specific areas of the platforms. We do API. We can offer any developer or user to build an application on our platform.

So, I program in your platform and then implement it on my Site?

DooChoo: Anything you can imagine about using a platform or an application can be done. Keep in mind that it’s not just for developers and users. It’s a platform where anybody, even a non-proficient / non-techie users, can go there and query any possible question, opinions, recommendation and get an answer. Not only for data, but also for structure.

How different or similar is it to social search engines like Aardvark?

DooChoo: It’s very different in this way — virtually any other competitor of DooChoo doesn’t have structured data model — structured data for inbound information. We are starting from building a new type of data structure, very specifically made for organizing opinions and is going to help to build the semantic layer on which we can also, in phase two or three, gather data that are not structured.

Right now, a lot of companies are offering semantic too, to understand sentiment. We are not doing that. We are building a structured data set on which people can offer opinions in a structured way. Imagine a poll or a survey — you like or don’t like — yes or no.

In the future, as I said, we can also have semantic tools to understand what people are thinking, but that is not our goal.

Can you tell me a little bit about the company?

DooChoo: The whole idea started more than a few years ago from Armando, then we met through a company called H-art in Italy. The company has been officially founded in January 2010 and it has been funded as well. We had a price seed of $150,000. We’ve had a decent burn rate and now we are close to the moment in which we are going to need funding to reach our next step.

doochoo armando and paolo demo at sfnewtech pic

Paolo and Armando on Stage at SFNewTech (photo credit: Matt Sylvey)

Who are the founders?

DooChoo: Armando Biondi and Paolo Privitera.

How can people get in touch with DooChoo?
DooChoo: You can call us at +1 415-787-CHOO or send inquiries to info@doochoo.com. And of course you can visit us online at http://doochoo.com/

Thank you and good luck!

Starting this month, our SFNewTech blog will be bringing insider scoops on the latest happenings at the companies that demo their application or service on our stage. We will also be interviewing the people behind all the cool new technology!

Our first such company is DooChoo. Doochoo took stage at the July 20th (2010) SFNewTech Event. After their awesome demo, we caught up with the two co-founders Armando Biondi and Paolo Privitera and asked them to give us the scoop on DooChoo, their unique platform and applications for opinions.

doochoo couching iphone app pic

doochoo - platform and applications for opinions

What is DooChoo?

DooChoo: It’s a platform — a technological platform with some applications built on top of that. It’s like a Freebase for opinions. Imagine a Wikipedia like site, imagine a place where anybody can post opinions and can ask opinions and can get answers. Doochoo is a public, open platform. We don’t own data. You can think of it like a Wikipedia, but much better. Wikipedia is not semantic; so you cannot query Wikipedia.

We compare our platform to Freebase — that, by the way, has been acquired by Google — we have had great meetings with Freebase and we’re really impressed by their platform.

So you can imagine a Freebase-like site with API on top and applications. We are building some applications that work as proof of concept plus we can go very deep into niche markets. We can power up specific areas of the platforms. We do API. We can offer any developer or user to build an application on our platform.

So, I program in your platform and then implement it on my Site?

DooChoo: Anything you can imagine about using a platform or an application can be done. Keep in mind that it’s not just for developers and users. It’s a platform where anybody, even a non-proficient / non-techie users, can go there and query any possible question, opinions, recommendation and get an answer. Not only for data, but also for structure.

How different or similar is it to social search engines like Aardvark?

DooChoo: It’s very different in this way — virtually any other competitor of DooChoo doesn’t have structured data model — structured data for inbound information. We are starting from building a new type of data structure, very specifically made for organizing opinions and is going to help to build the semantic layer on which we can also, in phase two or three, gather data that are not structured.

Right now, a lot of companies are offering semantic too, to understand sentiment. We are not doing that. We are building a structured data set on which people can offer opinions in a structured way. Imagine a poll or a survey — you like or don’t like — yes or no.

In the future, as I said, we can also have semantic tools to understand what people are thinking, but that is not our goal.

Can you tell me a little bit about the company?

DooChoo: The whole idea started more than a few years ago from Armando, then we met through a company called H-art in Italy. The company has been officially founded in January 2010 and it has been funded as well. We had a price seed of $150,000. We’ve had a decent burn rate and now we are close to the moment in which we are going to need funding to reach our next step.

doochoo armando and paolo demo at sfnewtech pic

Paolo and Armando on Stage at SFNewTech (photo credit: Matt Sylvey)

Who are the founders?

DooChoo: Armando Biondi and Paolo Privitera.

How can people get in touch with DooChoo?
DooChoo: You can call us at +1 415-787-CHOO or send inquiries to info@doochoo.com. And of course you can visit us online at http://doochoo.com/

Thank you and good luck!

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