I’m here in the i/o Ventures incubator, aka “a really geeky cafe” having just wrapped up a presentation of six i/o companies — some that we’ve written about before and some that haven’t yet launched (we’re looking at you Skyara). My rough notes on the companies presenting below:
App Bistro — A marketplace for Facebook business related apps, App Bistro attempts to circumvent some of the challenges around Facebook fan pages, giving brands an alternative to spending 1000s of dollars to market their apps, through an app store that lets users rate an review apps for businesses, which Facebook does not yet provid. Currently there are 20 million Facebook fan pages half of them for local businesses. App Bistro intends to monetize with a 70.30 revenue split, listing fees, sponsored placement.
Socialvision — Social Vision believes that the future of video viewing is in viewing parties and their consumer app, YouTube Social allows you to invite your friends through Facebook, and watch a video simultaneously. Currently partnering with Direct TV, Social Vision intends to monetize by proving platforms for content companies to hold their own viewing parties.
Anomaly — Anomaly is an attempt to “make the web personal” — an algorithm that provides personalized curated evolution of the web, which is a never ending firehose of information. The Anomaly algorithm finds out what you’re interested and serves it up in order of relevance. Their recent Twitter application thecadmus.com was hailed as “a newsfeed for Twitter” and apparently increased Twitter userstream engagement by a multiple of three.
Damntheradio — “If you’re going to promote anything you between have a social media presence,” says Johnny Hwin founder of loyalty and rewards based marketing platform Damntheradio, which has been cash flow positive since July. Capitalizing on the universal need to GET MORE FANS, Damntheradio helps businesses reward fans in exchange for their social actions. Currently just on Facebook, the Damntheradio social reward platform eventuallu wants tohelp businesses connect across all consumer touchpoints, social networks like Foursquare and Twitter, mobile, Google TV, Google car.
Skyara — Skyara, which hasn’t launched yet is an Etsy/Airbnb for experiences, targeting people who ask, “What is there to do?” Businesses who have experiences to offer can connect with people looking for things to do. An experience recommendation engine, Skyara has the potential to offer cool food experiences in SF beyond opentable, like going go to a beer tasting with i/o Ventures partner Paul Bragiel for example. Despite it’s still being in stealth mode, Skyara has already has a populated marketplace.
AppRats — AppRats are Facebook apps that cater to different brand of celebrity than that of TV, and radio, positing that celebrities need different set of skills for the Internet, providing platforms for celebrities who want to engage with fans via Facebook app. AppRats currently works with 50 our of the top 100 YouTube celebrities and hopes to add more to the list.
Stay tuned as I am covering this live and updating this post with our previous coverage, interviews and more info from the event.
