Alltopstartups » Thomas Oppong

Turn Your Google Chrome Into Web Music Library With EXFm

Thomas Oppong — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:03:09 +0000

ExtensionFM is a browser extension for Chrome that turns the entire web into your personal music library. As you browse, ExtensionFM runs in the background indexing every MP3 file you come across, building a music library for you. ExtensionFM will continue to check the sites you’ve visited, adding new music for you to listen to every day. ExtensionFM was founded in March, 2010 in New York City. Try this out if you use Google chrome. Music as you browse.

ExtensionFM Features:

* Find and listen to every MP3 you come across on the web
* Play songs from the source or within ExtensionFM
* Get a constantly updating stream of new music from the sites you’ve visited
* Continue to play music after you’ve left the page

The Race To The Top, Startup or Shut Up

Thomas Oppong — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:23:40 +0000

The race to the top is bedeviled with so many challenges. Right from the idea generation to a company formation, founders go through so many transformation that separate haves from the have nots. So many ideas are being pitched every day to either raise funds to build the product or to expand the company and to sustain the startup. Among the thousands that get pitched, few are able to make it through the idea phase. A lot of them die along the way. So many companies believe they are doing the right thing, but their efforts are not being recognized by technology bloggers or the top bloggers. If you are building a web product you need to go the extra mile to emerge from the sea of startups to receive that review you have longed for on techrunch. If you are now considering an idea remember a product doesn’t have to be disruptive to be valuable.

Web products are in two categories, those that users easily recommend or bookmark for future reference and those with the marketing edge that crawl their way to the top. You need have the right resources to survive the marketing journey. If you are about building a new product, you need Principles for Making that new idea you are thinking of into a company. If you are still in the race to the top, you need to craft strategies on how not to shut up and survive the race to the top.

I believe the web economy is just beginning to get interesting and if you are serious about being your own boss ,this is your time to startup or shut up.

Who Started The Foursquare Noise

Thomas Oppong — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:34:08 +0000

I read about the foursquare noise on techcrunch for the very first time and I thought it was one of those location based services. A lot of location based startups were already in business. Location based service is also not new, so what is so unique about foursquare. Is it addictive and useful ? or its just addictive or useful. The service was one of the reasons I compiled Top 14 Location Based Startups Competing For Your Attention and it looks like foursquare is getting all the attention. What have they done right or is the service that viral. I think its both. Judge for yourself.

Foursquare is a location-based social networking website, software for mobile devices, and also a game. Users “check-in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application. They are then awarded points and sometimes “badges.” The service was created by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai.

The service was Launched in March , 2009 and so far it has registered 1.3 million users as of June 2010. Foursquare raised has also $20 million in June 2010 from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The is being pursued by Internet giant Yahoo! Inc., which has offered as much as $125 million for the service.
The noise about foursquare has been very helpful for the company. They are all over the news, you can see posts like:
Foursquare: I still don’t understand it Shane Richmond and I may share the same opinion.
The service is already on its way to national television : VH1 Will Be Promoting Foursquare On National Television All Summer Long
Foursquare is Most In-Demand Social Network for Work From Home Projects
And finally the service could pass for one of the most talked about services on techcrunch in the past six months.
Did you contribute to the noise because I just did.

Top 21 Startups To Present At Mini Seedcamp London 2010

Thomas Oppong — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:51:38 +0000

Seedcamp has organised seedcamps for startups in Zagreb, Prague, Barcelona, Paris, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen and Berlin this year. The next city to host its mini seedcamp is London.

Seedcamp is a programme created to jumpstart the entrepreneurial community in Europe by connecting next generation developers and entrepreneurs with over 400 mentors from a top-tier network of company builders; including seed investors, serial entrepreneurs, product experts, HR and PR specialists, marketers, lawyers, recruiters, journalists and venture capitalists.

Seedcamp acts as a micro seed fund to invest in startup companies, mainly through our flagship event Seedcamp Week which takes place in September every year.

21 teams have been chosen to attend the London Mini Seedcamp on 27th July 2010 at UCL. The teams will present their ideas, services and products to a panel of serial entrepreneurs, mentors and investors for the top spot.

The Road To The ‘Silicon Valley’ of Europe

Thomas Oppong — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:52:59 +0000

Startups are better built in clusters, this way they can leverage on their talents and network. An environment like that promotes healthy competition. There are a lot of startups in Silicon Valley , Boston, Seattle, New York and the list goes on in the US . These cities are attractive to startups because of many reasons. Each startup will tell you why they moved to one city over the other and why they intend to leave their current city for another. Paul Graham is of the view that America is producing startup hubs because US allows immigration, is a rich country, The US Is Not (Yet) a Police State, American Universities Are Better, In America Work Is Less Identified with Employment, America Has Venture Funding and a host of other reasons.

All of this may be true, but I believe some cities in Europe have some of these attributes. But the big question I have is why the cities in Europe are not as attractive as Silicon Valley or Boston or even Seattle. Startups even move from their cities to the US, making the situation worse for the cities in Europe. Is it the government who makes a conscious effort to make the city attractive or is it a natural order as startups or the creative class begins to move to certain cities. Was silicon valley planned to be the way it is today or it just occurred as a result of the movement of the creative class. But I believe there was something attractive about it before people started to move there.

Governments can make the conscious effort to make their countries attractive to startups. Startup visa has sparked a lot of debate in the US. The mere fact that a section of the American people want to attract startups to the US should tell you that they are still making some effort to make the country attractive for startups. In the long term it is for the greater good of America. More jobs, a boost in economy and an increase in the creative class. America’s domestic market is huge and that in itself is attractive to a lot of startups. That is one of the reasons why most startups want to build for the US.

In recent times Countries like Russia, Ireland, England and Germany have made the effort to make their countries attractive to startups. Cisco is already aiming to pump $1B into Russia’s startup city. The laws may be different from country to country, even within the European Union. Hopefully a lot will change in the future.

For a silicon Valley to happen the country or city will needs the right infrastructure, favorable Laws, Venture Fund organizations that are willing to fund the startups, the right employment Laws, conducive immigration Laws, an attractive domestic market and the talent you can hire. Europe is still searching for its Silicon Valley, I hope the ’silicon valley’ of Europe will found soon for the greater good of all startups.

Silicon Alley Insider:Top 10 Startups in 2009

Startup Trends That Will Shape Internet Technology

Thomas Oppong — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 09:23:20 +0000

After six months into 2010, we have seen location based service predictions unfold in the latter part of the first six months. The second half of the year is yet to experience predictions that ranged from cloud computing, virtualization, Web TV to Web OS. The rest of the year will see the fulfillment of other predictions which I believe include the following startup trends.

Location based Discount Shopping services.
Consumer spending have never been the same since the economic downturn. A lot of consumers resorted to financial advice and ways to cut down on spending. A lesson leant and practiced over a long period is not easily discarded. Consumers will be looking for services that makes it easier to shop at a more cheaper price. You can provide discounted goods and services on a more localized level. Allow users to select specific places of interest to search for discounted good or services.

Business +Social Apps
Business applications will be fused with social apps at a faster pace than we are seeing. A lot more businesses will embrace social apps for business purposes instead of banning them at offices. Businesses like jive, socialtext will be embraced more going forward.

Mobile, Mobile and Mobile
Mobile apps have grown in numbers at the appstore and android store and will continue to grow. We have seen a lot of focus on location based services in the past six months. A lot more location based apps will continue to flood all the app stores. But you need to provide a service worthy of buzz to gain the kind of attention apps like foursquare are getting.

Advanced Social Analytics
Social analytics will be taken to another level. Social privacy will still be a heated debate among consumers and technologists. With the unveiling of facebook future plans and the possible introduction of a Google social network. A lot more resources will be directed at interpreting the social actions of consumers to better serve them with products. The analytics will be geared towards predicting human web behavior to empower businesses. Consumers will fight back to prevent businesses from using their social data, but ultimately the web giants will win.

Social Media Revolution
Enterprises will focus both on use of social software and social media in the enterprise and participation in a lot of social activities to increase brand awareness. Social media jobs will continue to grow. Companies will pay a lot more attention on these tools, hence the need to hire professionals who will handle business social activities. Social media tools will continue to grow and businesses will choose with care the once to trust and subscribe to.

Social Data Security
A variety of monitoring and analysis tools will emerge to help enterprises better detect and investigate suspicious activity – often with real-time alerting or transaction intervention. This will mostly be focused on social technologies that are being adopted by business. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these tools, enterprises can better understand how to use them to defend the enterprise and protect company data. Web giants like facebook and yahoo are considering adding their products to the numbers and a lot of location based services will suffer.

Top 6 Gettie Award 2010 Mobile Application Winners

Thomas Oppong — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:12:15 +0000

The Gettie Awards 2010 had hundreds of developers submit their applications for testing and the chance to win up to $25,000 in GetJar credits. A panel of industry heavyweights selected 18 nominees (6 categories, 3 nominees in each). Of those nominees, the following 6 emerged as winners of the six categories.

Best Java application: WaveSecure Backup – Helps keep your personal data safe by letting you back up or restore your data securely.

Best Symbian application: Nimbuzz – Helps you get free calls, instant messaging, file & location sharing with Nimbuzz friends and Skype, Facebook, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM/ AOL Instant Messenger, MySpace, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Hyves, & more.

Best Windows Mobile application: Opera Mini – Helps you get a fast, cost-efficient Web browsing experience with lightning fast data loads to your phone.

Best Blackberry application: Kayak Flight/Hotel Search – Helps you compare hundreds of travel sites at once, organize your itinerary and track your flights right on the Blackberry.

Best iPhone application: Tap Tap Revenge 3 – Helps you get access to over 100 free songs and 100 premium bundles of music rhythm games.

Best Android application: Lookout – Helps identify and block security threats, backs up and restores a user’s personal data, and can quickly find a lost or stolen phone by pinpointing its location on a Google map or sounding a loud alarm.

Best Overall Cross Platform App (Gettie Award): Layar – Helps to better understand and enjoy your context by augmenting your reality with digital information and immersive experiences.

Top 10 New York Startups You Should See

Thomas Oppong — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:12:33 +0000

There are a lot startups that are located in New York, but you probably have heard of only vimeo, foursquare, boxee, meetup, Yext, tumblr and some other popular once.They are great startups. Well there are a lot of other startups ,products or services you may not have heard or you should know. Check these out , one of them may have the solution to the problem you have been complaining to your friends. If you work with a startup in New York, I would love to hear about it, and make the noise. Add your startup today. Two spots are left for this list to be complete. Add it as a comment and I will add it to the list.

Neighborhoodr covers 60+ distinct neighborhoods in New York City, allowing anyone to share what is going on their block at any time.

Aviary is a full suite of creative tools similar to Photoshop and Illustrator available in your browser.

Hello Health helps doctors communicate, document, and transact with their patients in person and online.

Urbandaddy brings you the single thing you need to know every day about your city.

Hunch is a recommendations service premised on the idea that traditional recommendation algorithms focus on data sets that are far too narrow.Hunch asks you questions on just about any topic you can think of, and uses all the data it has to make its recommendations in any particular sphere.

Kikin makes software that — built-in to your browser — dramatically customizes your web experience based on locally stored preferences. Whenever you search for something, Kikin brings in related results from your favorite websites, highlights any relevant reviews from your Facebook friends, and so on.

Animoto does this with its automated video generating platform, in which users, pros and amateurs, upload their content — music, images — and then press create video.

Designer Pages is a free social application for finding products in architecture and interior design.

image from Filckr: svenwerk

Top 7 Investor Firms In New York You Can Contact For Funding

Thomas Oppong — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:09:50 +0000

Startups either bootstrap and later seek for funds from angel investors or venture capitalists. At each stage in building a company entrepreneurs access their funding requirements and apply for funding. If you intend to source for funding, one of the following firms might be of assistance to you. Contact them for details of how they can help.

First Round Capital is a venture capital firm is committed to providing funds for founders and assisting them build great companies.

Founder Collective is a seed-stage venture capital fund, built by a collection of successful entrepreneurs.

Polaris Venture Partners invests in seed and early stage companies and in growth equity companies with substantial operating income.

Spark Capital is a venture fund focused on the conflux of the media, technology, and entertainment industries.

RRE Ventures focuses on expansion stage information technology ventures.

Union Square Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm.

Zelkova Ventures early stage venture capital firm specializing in software-as-a-service and digital media.

Funding Universe Selects 5 Startups To Pitch At CrowdPitch 2010

Thomas Oppong — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:28:56 +0000

Funding Universe helps match angel investors and entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs can post their business plan or video, and download free sample plans and find valuable investor information. They also help you analyze your funding situation and offer funding recommendations.

CrowdPitch is 100% free event for entrepreneurs organised by funding universe. It takes place on at Seattle, July 8th 2010. Its Free for the pitching entrepreneurs & free for spectators (oh, and a free meal is provided too). Selected entrepreneurs will have 4 minutes to pitch their company to both a panel of experts & a live audience, followed immediately by a 3-minute Q&A session with the panel. The audience chooses the winner by investing ‘FUN’ money in the venture of their choice.

The following companies have been selected to pitch thier products: Cloudpak Inc ,CupAd, MobileOn Services, Text A Day and Tshirts4Hire.com