Ben Hindman, former director of events for Thrillist, found that his day-to-day, repetitive event management work – like invitations, guest list management, and post-event recaps – was difficult enough without having to create a dedicated, online presence for his events. To adapt a solution to his need, Hindman and Brett Boskoff cofounded Splash, a New York…
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Web searches are a new chore in our world. Look this up, find out where we are going; what is the menu for that restaurant again? Sometimes you nail it, but other times you are left out in the cold with the worst Chinese food you have ever tasted. Mike Farmer, along with Dan Carroll…
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Think about your neighborhood (at home or work). How many people within an easily accessible radius have some kind of basic household, office, or event equipment that you need, but would rather not buy? Think about what you have on hand that’s really useful every once in a while, but just sits around a lot…
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There are so many picture sharing services available that we tend to overlook the cousin to the digital picture: video. People use their camera phones for video recording every day, but seldom does an opportunity arise for organized and easily accessible video sharing. Juan Carlos Riveiro and Hendrik van der Meer, growing ever more frustrated…
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In recent years, online meeting sites and applications have focused on bringing the online connection offline for in-person meetings. The only problem is, these online sites are primarily focused on dating. Eric Lai and Ben Tao saw this as an opportunity to build a solution for users who want to make real-world connections online, but…
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On Betterific, people post ideas starting with “Wouldn’t it be better if…?” Here are a few clever ones from over 5,700 posted on the public beta site: Wouldn’t it be better if your car sent you a text message instead of/in addition to your car alarm going off? Wouldn’t it be better if there was a…
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Tom Nolan was prepping for a conference in a city he had never visited. After hours of research on the best restaurants, sightseeing opportunities, and optimal travel routes, he was ready to go. However, he soon found the map technology available to him to be lacking. Aggregating the myriad locations he had discovered onto one…
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I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon on Yelp; perhaps you’ve seen it? Some great restaurants end up with three stars – but when you take a look at the rating distribution, the majority of reviews are four stars. Negative reviews can, perhaps undeservedly, pull down a restaurant’s rating. But not on WHO I CHOOSE – this…
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Not too long ago, my parents celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary, and held a masquerade ball for friends and family. Leading up to the event, I wanted to put a slideshow together of photos of friends and family that told the story of their love. I will never forget showing my mum (yes, I am…
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Today, 500 Startups partner Paul Singh stepped down from his position and unveiled his new startup, Dashboard.io, which just raised around $250,000 from DC’s NextGenAngels.* Singh began working on the Dashboard.io technology before he even joined 500 Startups, but it became integral to the 500 experience. Over 400 accelerator companies got access to the platform,…
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Ever catch yourself looking at a friend’s friends on Facebook or social media? Of course you have! We’ve all done it, but meeting someone through a friend means – gasp – you actually have to ask for an introduction. Or worse: a friend attempts to sell you on an intro! Well now there’s Hinge, a new social…
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During the Super Bowl, there were 5,679,596 related tweets. Unfortunately, you mostly didn’t see the infographics with interesting social media insights on them until a few days later. With ten very interesting and different movies vying for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, the anticipation and the debates right before the show are the most…
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Gonnabe is an app that aims to help you plan your future. Have you ever wondered what events friends, colleagues or industry leaders are doing this weekend? Gonnabe allows you to announce places that you will be in the future (can be marked public or private). From there, others will view and join you at…
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Recently, I’ve been looking in the cities around me for the best and most interesting places to eat. Looking through Yelp and Google Local is helpful, but these sites seem to fall on two sides of the spectrum: hot or not. Typically, the reviews are raving fans or raging disbelievers. Facebook’s sporadic profile status reviews are…
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How often have you shared your dating site profile on Instagram? I’m assuming never. And this is one of the most promising signs for Let’s Date, a new dating app that launched publicly today out of Science Inc.: users are sharing their profiles on Instagram. Because they aren’t embarrassed. They want to show them off …
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Someday, maybe, doctors will study a condition called Facebook fatigue. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Symptoms include a sudden outburst of “What the heck am I doing?” after you’ve wasted 15 minutes reading about your ex-girlfriend’s brother’s latest trip to the gym. A wave of apps are offering cures for this condition, in the form…
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Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said... Read More
This post is part of Tech Cocktail’s “Healthy Entrepreneur” series,... Read More
Locating quality startups in San Francisco is like spotting bees in a hive.... Read More
Today, we’re excited to announce that Tech Cocktail has taken a $2.5M... Read More
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