The startups listed below have been consistently popular and have gained traction and lots of attention this year. These startups changed the game in their various industries. They will continue to transform the way we consume information and use our mobile phones. The top 12 includes:
AirBnb, disrupting the hospitality industry. Founded in August 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique spaces around the world online or from an iPhone device.
Dropbox, Brilliant concept that is gaining lots of traction. Dropbox was founded in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi. Frustrated by working from multiple computers, Drew was inspired to create a service that would let people bring all their files anywhere, with no need to email around attachments.
Instagram iPhone users love it. Instagram is a photo sharing application for the iPhone. It allows you to quickly take pictures, apply a filter, and share it on the service or with a number of other services.
Quora, Creating new methods for distributing and sharing knowledge. Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.
IntoNow , Changing how you watch TV and share it with other people.IntoNow is a consumer tech company that aims to enhance the way people engage with each other around the shows they love. In April 2011, they were acquired by Yahoo.
Square, which is changing how small merchants interact with customers, disrupting payments and small business. Square is a revolutionary service that enables anyone to accept credit cards anywhere. Square offers an easy to use, free credit card reader that plugs into a phone or iPad.
Hashable is changing the way we introduce ourselves.Hashable makes introductions (and connecting with people in general) easy and awesome. Before Hashable, your most meaningful connections with people (like intros, lunches, drinks, and meetings) would happen offline or privately and never get memorialized or captured in any permanent fashion. With Hashable, you can now capture all these great connections and roll them up into a public social profile.
Twilio offers great APIs for making/receiving phone calls and text messages. Twilio offers developers a powerful API for phone services to make and receive phone calls, and send and receive text messages.
Uber, Altering the taxi and paid car dispatching industry. Uber (formerly UberCab), is an iPhone application that helps users find rides from limos and town cars.
Zaarly (buy and sell things around you). is a proximity based, real-time buyer powered market. Buyers make an offer for an immediate need and sellers cash in on an infinite marketplace for items and services they never knew were for sale.
Flipboard Changing social news aggregation. Flipboard is a social magazine that aggregates web links from your social circle, i.e. Twitter and Facebook, and displays the content in magazine form.
Qwiki, transforming how easily information can be transformed into a presentation or experience. A “Qwiki” is a short, interactive story: an improved information experience provided via interactive video. Unlike traditional rich media content, all Qwikis are created on the fly from web sources (without any human intervention).
