Heading over to Twiistup 4 tonight in Santa Monica and looking forward to catching up with some fellow entrepreneurs. I'll second Brady Brim-DeForest in saying a big congrats to Mike Macadaan for pulling this all together and showing that the LA Tech community is alive and well.
Some intriguing startups showing off tonight, including Twiddla, which I wrote up a few months back.
From the Twiistup site:
Showing Off at Twiistup 4
Keeping with Twiistup tradition, we were going to select ten local start-ups. Due to the overwhelming interest, we expanded the list of featured companies to 11, including seven of Southern California’s best and brightest and four ‘crashers’ from Texas, Vancouver and the Bay Area.
South Pasadena - Big Stage is a media company whose breakthrough technology allows users to easily create and integrate a life-like 3D avatar of themselves into everything from famous movie scenes, TV shows and video games, to music videos, short video clips, virtual worlds, still images, user-generated content, instant messages, emails, social networks and more - instantly.
San Jose - BookRenter is the first online book rental service. BookRenter.com replaces traditional bookstore sales with online book rentals for students at schools throughout the nation.
Venice - Compulsion is a simple, easy to use tool that makes video clickable. The clicks become links that turn the video into an entire interactive universe of an individual’s design. Users can offer or sell those links for click and shop, gossip, trivia, news, music, more video, or anything imaginable.
Los Angeles - The LOUD3R Enthusiast Network is made up of in-depth, topic-oriented Web sites that are designed for the enthusiast and the curious who want to quickly find the best, richest content about a specific topic.
Austin, Texas - Minggl is a social interaction manager. The Minggl toolbar makes it easy to manage information, communication and navigation across social networks.
Los Angeles - Musicshake is the world’s first online UGM (User Generated Music) creation service that provides music composing solutions aimed at the general public (a.k.a. music dummies) without previous musical knowledge or expertise.
San Jose - Phonevite is the new, fun and simple way to send announcements and reminders over the phone, in the user’s own voice.
Los Angeles - Seethroo’s smart targeting technology allows advertisers to connect with individual social website users, creating more relevant ads and higher revenues for everyone.
Vancouver, BC - From grassroots scrappers to all star pros, Strutta brings players together from around the world in the spirit of true competition.
Santa Monica - Tools To Life is the world’s first free online self-help social network with real programs and community-driven support networks.
Los Angeles - Twiddla is a free, real-time online collaboration tool that offers simplicity and accessibility. It doesn’t require plug-ins, installs or downloads, and users don’t have to work around complex firewalls or advanced scheduling.
Great list of startups, wish I could attend and meet the teams behind them. If you like Twiddla, I suggest trying out Dabbleboard ( http://www.dabbleboard.com ). It's a collaborative whiteboard with a revolutionary UI that makes drawing much easier and faster.
Posted by: Zohair | July 18, 2008 at 11:16 PM