WHAT: Take, organize and save short notes by hashtags. Anyone with a feature phone [ limited to the U.S.for now ] as well as a smartphone can text themselves notes, which are synched with the web app.
Ability to share notes with groups or individuals planned. Android app out before end of 2011, iOs app eventually. Will integrate with Google Apps (calendar is top priority), Evernote and Outlook. Founders also plan to release the Fetchnotes API.
LAUNCHERS: Alex Schiff, CEO, and Chase Lee, CTO. Both are full-time students at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.
WHY: People still email and text themselves notes for their to-do list and ideas. Evernote can be too clunky/take too much time to set up for jotting down six- to seven-word notes. Feature phone users don't have an easy way to save notes.
[ Screen shots after the jump. ]
Fbookhire.me Sets Example for How to Sell Yourself and Try to Get a Job
If you're trying to get a job in today's economy, you might need to step up your game with a killer resume. Take Florian Mettetal, for example, who used his background in computer programming to create his own website, Florbook, which resembles the greatly anticipated Facebook Timeline.
"The new Facebook timeline view is going to be a very successful product for Facebook," Florian tells LAUNCH via email. "They have designed a style which blends personality with information and when creating a resume I believe this is what recruiters are looking for too."
Florian built the site using HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP, but admits that his experience in coding was outdated.
"When I hit a roadblock I would ask friends or chat rooms and gradually I figured it all out," Florian says. "It was a great learning experience for me and renewed my respect for the coding teams at Facebook."
[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
Florian says that he wanted to utilize the navigation menu on the right side, noting that it is helpful in navigating the wealth of information on the page.
"This was one of my objectives, to create a website that could...
IncrediBooth Helps You Get Your Spook On with New Theme, Improves Social Sharing
For Halloween weekend only, IncrediBooth is letting users download its app for free to check out its improved sharing and take advantage of its three new booths, like the Haus O'Haunt.
The additional booths cost $0.99 but LAUNCH editors think it's worth it. It's a lot of fun! The app, which features Hipstamatic's "optical brilliance," features a new "All Photo Strips" viewing mode, UI improvements, support for iOS5 and the ability to multi-task while your photos upload. Now, users can share full strips or just individual photos to Facebook, Twitter or via email.
[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
Mightybell Working with Top Magazines, Well-Known Experts to Add Experiences
You don't have to be famous to create an experience on Mightybell in which you break down a goal into actionable steps and have people follow/learn from you. But the young startup, founded by Ning co-founder Gina Bianchini and launched in September, has sought out relationships with magazines like Cooking Light, social celebs like Soleil Moon Frye and experts like author/coach Gabby Bernstein to create some pretty compelling (and evergreen) experiences that appeal to a broad audience.
Gina tells LAUNCH that these folks now "see the potential of Mightybell to engage their friends, fans, and followers to master a topic or achieve a goal."
At the top of the just-launched "Discover" section -- which Gina says was long planned -- you'll see "10 Vacation Rules to Save Your Life" from Conde Nast Traveler columnist and digital community director Wendy Perrin (484 followers or "travelers" in Mightybell-speak).
[ Screen shots after the jump. ]
Vimeo Burns Bridge with Indie Game Developer Because of Video Content Policy
[ Alec Holowka's trailer for "Alone" hosted on YouTube. ]
Award-winning indie game developer Alec Holowka is switching from Vimeo to YouTube after the New York-based artsy YouTube alternative wouldn't let him host a trailer for his video game "Alone."
Alec tells LAUNCH that the trailer remained on Vimeo only for about one week before he received an email informing him that Vimeo would not host the video. Alec says, "This is strange, because I've released other trailers and gameplay videos on Vimeo before with no issues." Some of Alec's videos are still on Vimeo, but says Vimeo made them all private without notification nor consent.
The email told Alec that in order to share gameplay videos, he would need to...
Watch NeuAer CEO Dave Mathews on TWiST Patents Episode #201 Now
Live video from your Android device on Ustream
Watch Dave Mathews, founder and CEO of NeuAer, and intellectual property attorney Reid Dammann today on a special patents episode of This Week in Startups today at 1pm PT.
Dave founded NeuAer, a proximity platform for smartphones in January 2010. Dave has 65 U.S. patents granted to him and before launching NeuAer, he worked at boxee and Slingbox. He also invented the CueCat consumer bar code reader.
We've Seen Flipboard's Long-Awaited iPhone App, Launching Soon (for Real This Time)
Almost as soon as Flipboard's social magazine for the iPad launched in the summer of 2010, people wanted to know when the iPhone version would debut. Co-founder and CEO Mike McCue confirmed at SXSW earlier this year that an iPhone app was in the works and told Bloomberg in April that it would ship at the end of the summer.
Having seen a version of the app a few weeks ago, we know it's for real. And just yesterday, McCue tweeted a reply to Ustream's Jeff Finkelstein, who asked McCue about the summer ship date: "yes well that's the last time I preannounce a ship date :-) bottom line is it has to be great before we ship. It's close."
McCue's other telling tweet yesterday was a response to a similar question: "well, I'm replying to you with the app now. Still a bit more polishing needed. Getting close."
The iPhone app most definitely does not feel like Flipboard for your iPad. The big difference we noticed: you
Flingo CEO Was Right About Google TV: "It's All About the Apps"
[ Flingo CEO Ashwin Navin on This Week in Startups. ]Google TV has come a long way since it first launched in October 2010. On a special connected TV-themed episode of This Week in Startups in July, television app maker Flingo founder and BitTorrent President Ashwin Navin said Google TV hadn't taken off yet because of price, noting that competitors like Roku -- starts at $59 -- and Apple TV -- $99 -- sell their devices for less, and also stressed the importance of apps.
With Google TV being one of the first open ecosystem's in the television industry where anyone can...
Cool Ripples from the Dalai Lama to Kevin Rose (Three Degrees of Uber-shares)
It's hard not to love the Ripples feature Google+ added yesterday, though the most impressive graphics come from those with hundreds or thousands of public and recent reshares.
We dig the list of cool Ripples Google+ Product Marketing Manager Louis Gray posted -- which itself got reshared hundreds of time to create the Ripple you see above.
For kicks, we followed the trail of best resharers, starting with the top Ripple from Louis's list, the post about the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu Hangout. A handful of Google execs saw their shares about the Hangout rehared, but
Today's Funding: Codecademy, Hyperink, 4INFO, Redfin, Facebook and Prysm (6 Deals, $132.8M)
Computer programming learning service Codecademy raised $2.5M in a funding round led by Union Square Ventures. Other investors include O'Reilly AlphaTech, Thrive Capital, SV Angel, Yuri Milner, Chamath Palihapitiya, Chris Dixon, CrunchFund, Craig Shapiro, Joshua Schacter, Vivi Nevo, Dave Morin, Sam Altman, Ruchi Sanghvi, Aditya Agarwal, and Naval Ravikant.
Codecademy
Website: http://www.codecademy.com
Twitter: @codecademy
Zach Sims, co-founder
Twitter: @zsims
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharysims
Ryan Bubinski, co-founder
Twitter: @ryanbubinski
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanbubinski
Union Square Ventures
Website: http://www.usv.com/
Big Question for Google+: How to Deal with Multiple Profiles for the Same Person?
[ Share a circle from your personal self to your App self if you can't wait for the migration tool. ]
The launch of Google+ for Apps accounts raises a number of questions that we're not sure Google is ready to answer just yet (we've asked and are waiting).
The big one: if you have a Google+ account for work (e.g., launch.is) and one linked to your personal Gmail account, how will they interact?
We know a migration tool will be out in a few weeks so that power Google+ users don't have to rebuild everything. We can't believe Google didn't have this ready from day one...anyway, you don't need the migration tool to transfer your circles, arguably the most important part of your profile after your posts/photos.
Once you've created a Google+ profile with your Apps account, go back to to your personal profile and add your "App self" to the list of people you follow. Next, share a circle to your App self. Now your App self can add that circle. Repeat as necessary.
One tip: choose a different profile photo for your App self so you can easily figure out which profile you're working with.
The follow-up questions to how these accounts interact: how many versions of people will we
Storify Revamps Site, Adds Storypad to Collect, Save and Share Media
Storify just launched a redesign to better streamline the process of storytelling through social media curation.
Storify lets users curate stories using media from sites like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Facebook. The changes include a new logo and look, a Storypad bookmarklet and Chrome extension, and smoother drag-and-drop functionality to effectively organize stories.
The redesign switches the placement of the search and editor on the user interface. It should now also be easier to add text to stories, the blog post states. Storify CEO Burt Herman tells LAUNCH that...
Google+ Shows You What Goes Viral and What's Hot
As part of Google+'s massive roll-out of new features today, Google added Ripples to let you see activity as it unfolds, and What's Hot to find interesting, unexpected content.
"We want to help people re-live those conversations—both to rekindle that initial excitement, and to learn how posts flow across the network," SVP of Engineering Vic Gundotra posts on the Google blog. "That’s why we’re launching Google+ Ripples: a visualization tool for public shares and comments."
To view Ripples, click on the upper right corner of any public post and click "View Ripples." To see What's Hot, navigate to the left sidebar.
[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
"We want to help people re-live those conversations—both to rekindle that initial excitement, and to learn how posts flow across the network," SVP of Engineering Vic Gundotra posts on the Google blog. "That’s why we’re launching Google+ Ripples: a visualization tool for public shares and comments."
To view Ripples, click on the upper right corner of any public post and click "View Ripples." To see What's Hot, navigate to the left sidebar.
[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
Google+ Gets Spooky, Adds Creative Image Editing Kit
[ Britney Spears and Adrian Grenier's new Google+ profile pictures. ]
Google+ is rolling out a new creative kit to its photo editor, which has already led celebrities and Google employees to post spooky Halloween-themed profile pictures to Google+.
"Nothing tells a story like the perfect picture, so it’s only natural to want to make yours really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking," Vic Gundotra posts on the Google blog. "Unfortunately, photo editing is too often a chore, requiring specialized software and lots of patience."
Now, you can add a vintage feel to photos, sharpen images, add fangs, horns and other creative elements to your Google+ photos. The kit features tighter integration with Picnik, an online photo editor that Google acquired in March 2010.
[ See how-to video and screen shots after the jump. ]
Finally -- Google Lets Apps Customers Build Google+ Profiles
[ Google Apps account administrators can read these tips for rolling out Google+ here. ]Since the day Google+ launched in late June, we've wanted Google+ profiles linked to our Google Apps accounts, and now we can.
The process took nearly four months because "It took more technical work than we expected to bring Google+ to Google Apps, and we thank you for your patience," according to the official post on the Google Enterprise blog.
Codify to Release Native Coding App for iPad as Open Source
Codify, a native coding application for iPad that just launched this week, lets you create games, simulations and other visual projects.
But commenters on Hacker News complain that you can't play a game built on Codify on any other iPad or sell in the App store. While Codify creator Simeon Nasilowski tells LAUNCH that Codify's intent is not for creating finished applications, but rather for idea development, his initial submission let users download projects to their PCs.
"However Apple rejected Codify for including this feature so it was removed," Simeon says. "I did not appeal their decision because I did not want to delay the release. However, I am adding this feature once more and plan to appeal if rejected."
Simeon says that he would like to release the backend of Codify -- its renderer and libraries -- as an open source project.
"This could allow people that build tools to turn Codify projects into...
But commenters on Hacker News complain that you can't play a game built on Codify on any other iPad or sell in the App store. While Codify creator Simeon Nasilowski tells LAUNCH that Codify's intent is not for creating finished applications, but rather for idea development, his initial submission let users download projects to their PCs.
"However Apple rejected Codify for including this feature so it was removed," Simeon says. "I did not appeal their decision because I did not want to delay the release. However, I am adding this feature once more and plan to appeal if rejected."
Simeon says that he would like to release the backend of Codify -- its renderer and libraries -- as an open source project.
"This could allow people that build tools to turn Codify projects into...
Tweetsheet Turns Your Tweet Activity into a Pretty and Sharable Infographic
We do love a pretty infographic, especially personalized ones like Tweetsheet that present your Twitter data by monthly activity for the past 12 months, most retweets, geographic impact (U.S. only), best followers and favorite themes. Each bar in the total tweets chart "above ground" shows in green the chunk of tweets replied to or retweeted.
Tweetsheet will only load your last 3,200 tweets (a Twitter-API limitation), so extremely prolific users may not see a full year of data. Also, we noticed it can take a bit for all your data to load and the sections to populate. You can only create Tweetsheets for your accounts, though anyone can see a Tweetsheet the owner has shared.
Clever bonus: click the bird on the left side of your Tweetsheet and it will hop into a slingshot, Angry Birds-style. You rack up points for knocking down the bars in your chart (yes, you can hit replay and tweet your score).
Tweetsheet is a teaser product from
Today's Funding: Geekl.st, Brammo, RelayRides, Sincerely, Zingaya, Sociable Labs, CashStar and Discovr (8 Deals, $56.2M)
[ Image courtesy of Tracy O via creative commons license. ]Geekl.st, a communication network for developers, raised $600K in funding from angel investors Keith Richman, Nick Wilson, Neal Rapoport, Max Clark, Brian Tu, Sean Knapp, Jeff Fluhr, Joseph Shieh and Great Oaks VC.
Geekl.st
Twitter: @gklst
Christian Sanz, co-founder and CTO
Twitter: @csanz
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/csanz
Reuben Katz, co-founder and CEO
Twitter: @rekatz
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/reubenkatz
Keith Richman
Twitter: @KeithRichman
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/keithrichman
Nick Wilson
Twitter: @vegancto
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ctonick
Website: www.nickwilson.net
Trip out with Rorschmap, a Kaleidoscope View of Places on Earth
[ The Pentagon in kaleidoscope view. ]
If you're bored with current views in Google Maps, check out Rorschmap -- and get ready to feel like you're tripping on a psychedelic drug.
Literary publisher and web coder James Bridle used the Google Maps API to let you explore the earth in kaleidoscope view. Type in any location in Rorschmap, then view the map either in satellite view or standard map view. The map has the same controls as a standard Google Map, allowing you to zoom in and out, and move the map around via click-and-drag.
[ See screen shots after the jump. ]
Klout's New Algorithm Can Make Scores Drop 20+ Points
Klout's new scoring algorithm -- which the company tried to prepare users for a week ago -- already has influential people expressing frustration.
"Very unhappy with this change," Timothy Whalin, a UX designer, commented on Klout's blog post announcing the change. "My score went from 73 down to 53. 20 point drop. I've been working for months to increase my Klout score. Please fix this."
Klout Marketing Manager Megan Berry tells LAUNCH via email that "the majority of users saw...