Web video
Joost
Joost could potentially change the
way people watch television. The technology enables the broadcast of TV-quality
video over the Internet, and allows people to stream real TV programs from
networks like MTV and National Geographic. It also features search, chat and
instant messaging, built right into the interface. Much like TiVo, Joost does
not restrict you to schedules, allowing you to watch what you want whenever you
want. But unlike TiVo, Joost is completely free, and works with most PCs and
Intel Mac-based computers with a broadband connection. So far the
invitation-only, ad-supported service has more than 800,000 registered users.
CEO: Mike Volpi
Location: London, England
URL: joost.com
Launch: Mid-2006
Funding: $45 million (Index ventures, Sequoia Capital, Li Ka Shing
Foundation, CBS Corporation, Viacom)
Web video
Trivop
Trivop produces videos for hotels
through a worldwide network of filmmakers, allowing travelers to virtually
visit the hotels online before they book. Funded by individual investors, the
company plans to expand across 10 major European cities and is moving into the
United States, Asia, the Middle East and Africa by the end of 2007.The
ambitious plans make sense, considering that Trivop doesn't need to localize
content; video images don't need to be translated. The startup already has
videos of hotels in 173 countries and claims 30,000 unique views per month.
CEO: Thomas Owadenko
Location: Paris, France
URL: trivop.com
Launch: 2007
Funding: $82,000 (angel investors)
Web video
Babelgum
like another online TV-viewing outfit, like Joost. Unlike Joost, Babelgum isn't
just moving mainstream television to the Internet. Instead, it is also offering
niche programming, including independent and short films. In the near future
Babelgum also plans to allow professional independent producers to
automatically upload their videos to its site. The content is free for the
consumer, but the company intends to make its money through targeted
advertising. Co-founder Silvio Scaglia has already poured $17.8 million into
the company and plans to spend another $130 million or so of his personal fortune
to get the company up and running over the next few years.
CEO: Valerio Zingarelli
Location: Milan, Italy
URL: babelgum.com
Launch: January 2007
Funding: $17.8 million (co-founder Silvio Scaglia)
videos. So far, it's no YouTube -- in May, the website had just over 3,000
uploaded videos available in a dozen different categories. But we think this
startup has potential because it doesn't want to be a YouTube competitor. It
wants to be an alternative for those Slovak and Czech users who do not want
their creation to be lost in the tangle of videos on YouTube. Myubo already has
more than 2,000 registered users, and offers live streaming of TV content from
Al Jazeera news channel, Slovakian TV 3 and a Czech Parliament TV feed.
CEO: Igor Rintel
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
URL: myubo.com
Launch: 2007
Funding: Not disclosed
mTouche captured a lot of buzz after it acquired mBit, which allows users to
download files, Napster-style, over mobile networks. Now the company has set
its sights on global expansion: CEO Eugene Goh wants 70 percent of mTouche's
revenues to come from overseas, compared to 50 percent today. The company
reported $15.6 million in revenues on $7.2 million in pretax profits last year.
CEO: Eugene Goh
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
URL: mtouche.com
Launch: 2002
Funding: N/A
doesn't require customers to download special software or use a separate device
for making phone calls. You provide them an international number, they provide
you a local number. When you dial, Rebtel switches your call to the Internet,
allowing for cheap international, mobile-to-mobile communications. Rebtel says
users have opened "several hundred thousand accounts."
CEO: Hjalmar Winbladh
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
URL: rebtel.com
Launch: 2005
Funding: $20 million ( Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital and founders)
surfing on mobile phones obsolete. The company's mini Web applications, like
widgets, deliver blog feeds, news updates, Flickr photo streams, traffic
updates and much more directly to mobile phones. There are more than 1,400 free
widgets available and the company boasts close to 98 million downloads around
the world. Next up? WidSets wants to develop interactive widget services with
social networking and content sharing sites.
CEO: Olli Pekka Kallasvuo
Location: Espoo, Finland
URL: widsets.com
Launch: 2006
Funding: Nokia
provide the best prices for flights, hotels and cars in one place. An AJAX interface lets users sort flights quickly by price
or departure time without
reloading the page. It's a win-win for Bezurk and travel providers: Bezurk gets
traffic, and providers build direct relationships with new customers. Bezurk
has almost 50 partners, and ample airspace -- the online travel market in the
Asia Pacific region was valued at $20 billion in 2006.
CEO: Martin Symes
URL: bezurk.com
Location: Singapore
Launch: 2006
Funding: $1 million (founders)
individuals to create, sign and manage business contracts online. To deal with
the problem of online identities, Tractis plans to offer insurance that will
reimburse customers and help enforce contracts when there's a dispute. Tractis
plans to expand throughout Europe and South America -- mainly countries where
governments are issuing ID cards with digital signatures.
CEO: David Blanco
URL: tractis.com
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Launch: 2006
Funding: About $500,000 (angel investors)
other browser has in China: It has found a way around the Chinese government's
controls on what information is available through sites and search engines like
Google, Yahoo, MSN and Baidu.com. That's why Maxthon has quickly become China's second most popular browser after Internet
Explorer, with 98 million downloads so
far.
CEO: Chen Ming Jie
Location: Bejing, China
URL: maxthon.com
Launch: 2003
Funding: Not disclosed (WI Harper and Charles River Ventures)
businesses with freelance customer service agents, allowing small companies to
cobble together a call center without any investment in infrastructure. Each
agent costs only $10 per month. More than 7,000 companies have registered to
use its services.
CEO: Pascal Rossini
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
URL: sky-click.com
Launch: 2006
Funding: $4 million (Babytech Venture Capital)
dolls -- or choose from the site's ever-growing collection of celebrities --
and dress them in virtual fashions. Celebrity dolls like Avril Lavigne or
Justin Timberlake can be customized, sent to friends, or printed for free.
Stardoll counts more than 5.5 million users, mostly girls aged 7 to 17.
CEO: Mattias Miksche
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
URL: stardoll.com
Launch: 2004
Funding: $10 million (Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital)
consumers to search, review and recommend food and nightlife businesses in India. Users can sign up to receive hyper-local
alerts via SMS any time a new restaurant or
bar opens, closes or is reviewed in any neighborhood in their city.
In the future, Burrp wants to offer consumer listings in other fields such as
TV, movies and music, so users can make and share their own preferences in
those fields. Word-of-mouth marketing brings 80,000 visitors to the site a day.
CEO: Deap Ubhi
URL: burrp.com
Location: Mumbai, India
Launch: August, 2006
Funding: Not disclosed (founders)
write and report for this South Korean online newspaper, which now offers a
Japanese edition. More than 50 staff reporters in the newsroom edit content, a
mix of news reporting and commentary, for more than 750,000 unique users a day.
OhmyNews is considered influential among South Koreans -- the site was
recognized for helping President Roh Moo-hyun win the popular vote in December
2002.
CEO: Oh Yeon Ho
URL: ohmynews.com
Location: Seoul, South Korea
Launch: 2000
Funding: N/A
social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and social aggregators like Digg are
great for separating the wheat from the chaff. Still, trolling those sites for
links about one specific topic for can be a pain. Enter Keotag, a beautifully
simple site that lets users easily search for tags across 14 different sites,
from Reddit to Ice Rocket.Keotag will also do the heavy lifting of generating
the folksonomy tags for a blog post, or submitting a bookmark to multiple
sites. Created by founder and sole employee Eric Jally, Keotag is an example of
a website you don't know you need until you begin using it.
CEO: Eric Jally
Location: Noumea, New Caledonia
Launch: N/A
Funding: N/A
people without programming experience to make real games. Download software
called Game Maker from YoYo, and you can create, upload, and share your own PC
or video games with thousands of other users. (You can't play the games online
-- you have to download them to your computer.) YoYo Games also has resources
for game developers, such as forums and downloadable software, to help users
make their own games. The company already has 25,000 registered users and
nearly 3,000 users.
CEO: Sandy Duncan
Location: London, England
URL: yoyogames.com
Launch: January 2007
Funding: Not disclosed (founders)
own storefront, design their own T-shirts and accessories, and sell them to
others. All they need to do is upload their designs, create products, and set
their commissions. Spreadshirt claims to be growing fast, supporting 300,000
designers and employing 230 people.
CEOs: Lukasz Gadowski
Location: Leipzig, Germany
URL: spreadshirt.com
Launch: 2002
Funding: Not disclosed (Accel Partners)
exchange where it tracks the occurrence of keywords in the news, and their
prices rise and fall based on how often they appear. As in the real stock
market, you build your portfolio with words that you believe will rise, and you
win if your predictions prove right. Swedish investor Peter Ahldin, whose
portfolio of Swedish startups includes Tradedoubler, is funding the company.
Trendio currently has 35,000 registered users.
CEO: Jens Agerberg
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
URL: trendio.com
Launch: 2006
Funding: Not disclosed (angel investors)
of space to upload everything from websites to photos to videos -- and share
them with friends. Users can create niche portals around subjects like
painting, photography or karaoke. eSnips, which boasts 12 million users, was
recently ranked on Web traffic-tracking site as one of the 500 most visited
sites.
CEO: Yael Elish
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
URL: esnips.com
Launch: 2006
Funding: $3 million (Gemini Israel Funds and Greylock Partners)
1,000 Africa-related blogs, podcasts and news sites. Readers can rank
individual posts and read them online. In May, Afrigator began using OpenID, a
system that allows users to operate a single login at multiple websites.
CEO: Justin Hartman
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
URL: afrigator.com
Launch: April 2007
Funding: $35,000 (angel investors)
location and post location-tagged photos from your computer or phone. If you
have a GPS-enabled cell phone, you can allow friends and other Bliin members to
track your real-time movements on a map. The fledgling company claims 4,000
members, and it logged 20,000 unique visitors in June.
CEO: Stef Kolman and Selene Kolman
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
URL: bliin.com
Launch: January 2007
Funding: $100,000 (Digital Partners and DCIF)
pop up at the bottom of any Web page whenever other Weblin members are viewing
it, turning Web pages themselves into virtual worlds. The company hopes to make
money through advertising and premium memberships, and by selling virtual
items. Available in English and German, the site plans to launch in other
languages, including Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.
CEO: Jan Andresen
Location: Hamburg, Germany
URL: weblin.com
Launch: 2006
Funding: $1.3 million (private investors and High Tech Grunderfonds)
lets users bookmark and tag any images they come across while surfing the Web,
put them in one place, search them by keyword and share them with friends.
Pixrat stores thumbnails of original images and when a user clicks on the
image, they are led directly to the original Web page. The company was acquired
last year by MIH India, the Indian arm of Naspers, a South African media
company.
CEO: Ashish Kashyap
Location: Bangalore, India
URL: pixrat.ibibo.com
Launch: 2006
Funding: Acquired by MIH, India
an idea for new software and put it to a vote. The network of developers,
entrepreneurs, and investors, among others, selects the favorites and works to
turn them into products. Even better, members who actively participate in the
community of ideas earn shares in Cambrian House -- simply by commenting on
business ideas, editing profiles or contributing code. So far the site has
35,000 members and some 5,400 ideas have been submitted.
CEO: Michael J. Sikorsky
Location: Calgary, Canada
URL: cambrianhouse.com
Launch: 2006
Funding:: $7.5 million (angel investors)
comfort food, Khichdee seeks to become the Craigslist of India, aggregating
both online and offline classifieds into a monster search engine. While the
site's content may differ at times from the listings on Craigslist -- ads for
arranged marriages are common, for instance -- the idea behind it is much the
same. Why place an ad in a local paper when you can post it on the Web and snag
a potentially larger audience? With an average of 4,500 new ads posted day, the
site is catching on.
CEO: Ashwin Sanghi
Location: Mumbai, India
URL: khichdee.com
Launch: 2006
Funding: Owned by the M.K. Sanghi Group
network centered on casual mobile gaming. The site uses free games and
customizable personal avatars to draw users in. Members can spend virtual cash
called Moba Gold on primping and preening their avatars, but there's a catch:
Moba Gold is earned from watching ads, many of which are for services and
products provided by Mobagetown parent company DeNA Co.The site's growth has
been meteoric, hitting 4 million users this March.
CEO: Tomoko Namba
Location:Japan
URL: mbga.jp
Launch: 2006
Funding: Owned by Japan's DeNA Co.
parents is a place where doting mothers and fathers can give each child a page,
photo album and friend connections. More important, it's one of the few sites
that also caters to parents, allowing them to network and get advice on
child-rearing and other family matters. The company says a million visitors
have checked the site out since its launch earlier this year.
CEO: Allen Wang
Location: Beijing, China
URL: babytree.com
Launch: March 2007
Funding: Matrix partners
articles and Wikipedia-like contributions, Vivapets is trying to catalog every
pet breed -- and it's a social network to boot. Unlike Dogster or Catster,
Vivapets is open to all pets, including reptiles and exotic animals. The site
allows users to create pages for their pets and add photo albums, then engage
with a network of friends through forums, chat, or personal messaging. The site
currently has 100,000 registered users and claims 220,000 unique visitors each
month.
CEO: Marcos Cerqueira
Location: Oporto, Portugal
URL: vivapets.com
Launch date: 2003
Funding: Not disclosed (founders)
discussion boards using the latest Web technologies, making it easy to keep
track of several discussions at once. Tangler is live, so the minute someone
responds to your thread, you're sent an alert -- even if you're not on Tangler
at the time. The 12-person site claims more than 10,000 active discussions and
is now in the process of raising a second round of about $2 million.
CEO: Martin Wells
Location: Sydney, Australia
URL: tangler.com
Launch: July 2006
Funding: $2 million (angel investors)
Mandarin, you can search for real information about 30 Chinese cities using
virtual maps. The company also hopes to add 100 more virtual maps by the end of
this year. Apart from allowing users to look for information on the existing
maps, eDushi lets them build interactive maps in basic 3D, adding comments and
information. For example, one user might write a map entry about hotels in Shanghai, and others might make comments that help
to build out the map. The website
claims nearly 200,000 visits per day.
CEO: Pang Xiaowei
Location: Hangzhou, China
URL: edushi.com
Launch: 2004
Funding: Not disclosed (founders)
organizes calendars, contacts and presentations, and even lets paying customers
do e-mail marketing. The site, which offers both a free version and a fee-based
professional version, claims more than 50,000 users. Although the services are
available only in English and Portuguese, Aprex plans to add 3 more languages
this year.
CEO: Guilherme Coelho
Location: San Paolo, Brazil
URL: aprex.com.br
Launch: 2006
Funding $500,000 (founders)
