Social networks and alternative search engines were big at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo in New York, but no one is necessarily trying (nor are they likely) to become the next Facebook or Google.
A new crop of young Web 2.0 entrepreneurs and developers are latching on to pre-existing and proven successful ventures and adding their own spin.
Here are a few that stood out from the crowd, but not all in a good way:
Present.ly: With all of the hype (and drama) of Yammer’s win at the TechCrunch50, microblogging for businesses has piqued the interest of corporate communications folks.
Intridia, a group of young developers from the nation's capital, officially launched their service, Present.ly, at the expo this week.
They were also at the TechCrunch50, but somehow didn’t make the final cut. One of its co-founders and President of Intridea, Yoshi Maisami, claims they weren’t even allowed to demo their product. But regardless of rumors, they say they’ve actually benefited from Yammer-mania. Like its competitor, the program works as an internal Twitter, letting employees communicate to each other instantly and more openly than traditional email. Unlike Yammer, one person with an email can’t just log in and start up a thread: your company has to set up the service first and it can be integrated into their existing software, where all your messages are as safe and secure as everything else. They support file attachments, and conversations can be organized in groups. And they’re already off to a decent start, with some big name brands on board, including CBS and Xerox.
Amuso: Social networks have been struggling to find the ideal business model to tap into their ever-growing communities without the fear of microtargeted ads and privacy concerns. Amuso didn’t have an official booth here at the expo, but the online gameshow startup seems to be onto something. Developed by two former Yahoo-ers, the network is based on the popularity of the likes of American Idol and YouTube celebrities. Users pay to upload images or videos as entries into a user-generated contest, both the winner and the creator get a cut. The contest rage anywhere from the superficial “Cutest Boyfriend” to the pro-bono, including one that encourages you to send in a smile raise money for cancer research.
(See, Tim O’Reilly? There’s some good out there.) If Facebook can get millions of people to buy tiny image “gifts” for a dollar a pop, why wouldn’t someone want to dish out cash with the potential for fame and a nice little return on their investment? Co-founder Barak Rabinowitz says the company has been particularly popular with models as well as with various fundraisers. He says they’re already in talks with some big TV studios.
Sightix:
One of the biggest flaws in social networks is the search capability, and one Israel-based startup thinks they have the answer. They’ve created a search engine that integrates with any social network to find and display connections. Think an online six-degrees of Kevin bacon, but one that might actually help you meet people previously out of your reach. So if you wanted to find out the best way to get in touch with
Steve Jobs, you can start out by rubbing elbows with his own network of friends as it links back down to your own inner circle. You type in key words and you can filter out entries that are unrelated. So if you search for “Apple”, you can weed out those who own a mac, and those who love the fruit. There is also a visual web-like display of how everyone knows each other. An obvious potential winner here would be LinkedIn, who could use the search to power up and simplify the way people network.
LiveBar: Live World Inc., has created a tool to make surfing the web a team sport. LiveBar, which launched this week, adds a social network to any website with only one line of javascript. A bar exists at the bottom of any page, where viewers can post Tweet-like messages and comments to each other and see how many other people are on the page as well. Like Present.ly, they’re not trying to be the next MySpace, but are merely bringing the functionality of social networking to businesses. It’s a much richer experience than a forum or a comments section, with live discussions that are content-driven without taking space away from the content.
There is also the option of making a little more money on the side with integrated Google ads. Right now LiveBar is live on the Tulane
University newspaper website, and will soon be on both QVC and
A&E’s sites as well.
Twing: Screw Twitter; forums are where it’s at -- or so claims Scott Germaise, director of product management for the search engine startup that aims to help people find the threaded conversations. He says he thinks forums are where the real, substantial dialogue takes place, and not in 140 character limit tweets. While we’re not sure that this old model is making much of a comeback – he claims they never really left – Twing does offer a useful alternative to Google. The search results are ranked based on the relevance of the topic rather than quality rankings, and you can monitor forum activity by subscribing to feeds.
Kickfly & Smeet:
Cool names and flashy products, but we aren’t quite sure that these to startups have much of a future. Kickfly takes a website url and creates a 3D world using photos and videos embedded on the page. Basically it's the same type of annoying glitter that has cluttered MySpace. The media exists on 3D cubes, which is strange, because it only makes the content more difficult to view. Smeet is a German company that is very similar to There. Following the new trend of bringing social networks to businesses, Smeet creates customized 3D virtual worlds (more than just cubes), where people can interact around a specific product to watch media and chat. There has done this with several MTV shows, but the big difference, according to Smeet is that there is no download.
But does the world really need more avatars?
*Photo: Flickr/melissaclark
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