Author Archive
Dogpatch brings new talent to their fratty, fratty space
Watch out Cambridge, because a new rowdy crew of startupers are moving into Dogpatch Labs.
Created by Polaris Venture Partners, Dogpatch Labs is a collection of comfy office spaces providing an open-minded environment for innovators to stretch out and flex their entrepreneurial game. It recently expanded, and has already hosted some great companies in its short, one-winter history.
On the Dogpatch website, coordinators describe the labs as “sorta like frat houses for geeks,” which immediately evokes scenes from the 1984 classic, Revenge of the Nerds (not so much Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise).
As far as I’m concerned, the guy who plays Goose in top gun is cooking up sick startup ideas just across the Charles. Joining him, is an ambitious group of fellow new recruits who will get a few months worth of rent for free and some solid mentoring without having to share equity with their new host. We’ve covered and gotten to know many of these newly-accepted companies here at BostInnovation, and we’re pumped to see them accepted at Dogpatch. So without further ado, here’s the new class of Dogpatch Labs Cambridge along with links to their BostInno features: (more…)
Tags: Cambridge, Company News, DOgpatch Labs, VC
Posted in Around the Hub | View Comments
Mayor Menino: A fan of mobile
This week, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino announced the launch of a new mobile-optimized version of the City of Boston’s website (www.cityofboston.gov).
True to industry best practices, you’re automatically routed to the mobile version if you enter the URL from your phone. Boston is constantly innovating to bring Gov 2.0 services like Citizen Connect to mobile platforms. With the addition of this new mobile site, nearly all online city services are now accessible on the go.
I say “nearly all” only because the original press release states that users get access to “the information they want most,” which seems to imply some restriction as to functionality – a common issue with many mobile-specific websites.
Restrictions aside, it’s hard to complain about the new mobile-optimized Boston website which now allows you to instantly perform the following actions right from your phone:
- Find local activities and attractions
- See street sweeping reminders before you park
- File taxi complaints and stolen goods
- View real-time election results
The mobile version went live on April 14th, and is designed for use with smartphones like BlackBerries, Androids and iPhones. (more…)
Tags: Boston Government, Gov 2.0, Mayor Thomas Menino, Op-Ed
Posted in Around the Hub, Mobile | View Comments
Code for America Picked Boston!
Between winning tech awards and potentially grabbing super high-speed Internet, it’s clear that Boston is all about using technology to better govern our great city. That’s why it should come as little surprise that Boston was selected as one of five cities to participate in the first cycle of Code for America, a program that builds free applications aimed at improving U.S. city governments.
Inspired by Teach for America, Code for America (CFA) connects web-developers with city governments to build applications for a more connected and effective city government. For this first cycle, CFA asked cities all over the U.S. to apply with specific ideas for web applications to benefit any number of city government procedures.
Once proposals were reviewed, five cities were chosen: Boston, Mass., Philadelphia, Penn., Washington D.C., Seattle, Wash., and Boulder, Colo.
According to CFA founder and executive director Jennifer Pahlka, the final five were chosen specifically based on what they offer and the kinds of apps suggested for them. (more…)
Tags: Boston Government, Boston Tech News, Code For America, Company News
Posted in Around the Hub, Digital | View Comments
Even if traffic cams can't prevent road rage like this, they can at least catch it on tape
Boston will be one of six new cities to be installed with a number of EarthCam network cameras to be used in conjunction with traffic monitoring service, Total Traffic Network (TTN), according to a press release sent out yesterday.
The good news? TTN provides real-time traffic updates that can be streamed through a number of consumer devices, and EarthCam provides advanced webcam technology – making what seems a match made in heaven for Bostonians trying to avoid hours staring at the same “clever” bumper sticker for three miles.
TTN prides itself on providing “best-in-class, real-time traffic data service for broadcast, web, wireless, and navigation consumers, with an emphasis on providing accurate, relative, and timely information.” The company is currently the leading source for accurate, real-time traffic data, serving an estimated 125M users already. Most of the monitoring, it seems, comes from their proprietary video network.
Apparently it’s a subsidiary of the always-loved Clear Channel Radio network, but hey, if it makes navigating the system of worm holes and skyline pathways in Boston, we’re all for it. (more…)
Tags: Boston, Company News, EarthCam, Total Traffic Network
Posted in Around the Hub, Digital | View Comments
The internet has made it easier than ever to find sick deals on just about anything you want to buy. Specifically, sites like Groupon and BuyWithMe offer up crazy discounts on a daily basis. The daily discount site concept has really heated up recently, and now Boston has a discount site of its very own: Boston Bargains.
Yeah, the other sites let you make the Boston-specific deals, and BuyWithMe was even founded here, but we’re just another city on a drop-down menu when you delve into what the bigger players are doing. Boston Bargains is the real deal – beantown only, and run by people who live there.
Based in Beverly, Mass., Boston Bargains was launched just a couple weeks ago and has been offering incredible Boston deals ever since. Founder, Patrick Tarmey (22), shoots for a “homey” feel, and is willing to sacrifice profits to gain a loyal Boston following. In fact, Boston Bargains has been known to push revenue back into the discount to provide an even better deal. As Tarmey says, “it’s not all about making a ton of profit.” At least not right now. (more…)
Tags: Boston Bargains, BuyWithMe, Company Profiles, Groupon
Posted in Around the Hub, Digital | View Comments
Teens from 16 different public schools participated for the chance to make their ideas a reality
On Wednesday night, $100,000 in funding was awarded across 14 new innovations, all of which were conceptualized and developed by Boston teenagers. The event was the final presentations and award ceremony of the Cloud Foundation’s ArtScience Prize.
Founded by David Edwards, who you may remember as the inventor of Le Whif, The Cloud Foundation provides Boston public school students with a voluntary after school program that not only lets them conceptualize and design their own inventions, but grants them a chance to see these inventions become a reality. A main goal, well stated by Edwards, is to “start youth on the path to scientific research, creative thinking and problem solving.”
The program encourages innovation among Boston teens by challenging them not only to dream up concepts but also to plan production, design prototypes, and articulate their mission. At the awards ceremony at Cloud Place on Boylston St., I saw Boston teens stand up in front of the crowd and announce their projects with pride and excitement after months of diligent work. (more…)
Tags: ArtScience Prize, Boston Public Schools, Edu, Innovation
Posted in Around the Hub, Edu | View Comments
Baydin makes apps like Boomerang that make Email actually seem manageable
Keeping your Email inbox count at zero– We all strive for it, but for most it’s been out of reach for years. When the Internet dumps an unwieldy pile of miscellany on you, managing Email can become an impossible goal. It’s no easy task to stay on top of your Email list, and when messages are so varied in topic and chronological relevancy, it’s inevitable that a couple will be lost in the jumbled cascade of read and unread emails.
MIT class of 2005 graduate, Alex Moore (26), is attempting to solve the problem of lost and forgotten Emails with his application, Boomerang. The app currently integrates with Microsoft Outlook 2007 and a Gmail integration is in production.
True to its name, Boomerang allows users to take currently irrelevant Emails, pull them out of the inbox, and designate a more pertinent time for them to fly back in, unread.
Driven to start his own company to supply solutions like this, Alex drafted up the concept for Baydin and was accepted into the TechStars program last May. (more…)
Tags: Baydin, Boomerang, Company Profiles, Email Apps, techstars
Posted in Digital | View Comments
The NERDS turn piles of scrap metal into projectile launching siege machines
What did you do for your last company team building exercise? Maybe climbed some ropes, passed co-workers through a nylon-cord spider web? How about turning a pile of scrap metal into a medieval siege weapon? Didn’t think so.
It sounds crazy, but that’s the kind of thing you’ll do in a program lead by Waltham’s Jeff DelPapa, who has the engineering skills to guide you through a challenge of ingenuity that will exercise a whole lot more than your typical kayak trip. Jeff is an expert at turning piles of scrap metal into awe-inspiring contraptions that have been used in TV production, music videos, art shows and more.
Jeff is a former member of the New England Rubbish Deconstruction Society (NERDS) which was an American team featured on the British television show, Scrapheap Challenge, (Junkyard Wars to us yanks) in 2000. After catching an early glimpse of the British concept, he quickly rounded up two other teammates in the Boston area who applied, were accepted and became finalists in the contest. Today, he’s turned The NERDS brand into a chance for regular Joes to build awesome weapons out of scrap heaps. Though the televised competition is over, Jeff has taken the basic elements of the show and turned them into an exercise anyone can participate in. Sure, you might use rope here, but you could also rip through steel with a cutting torch– something that might even make uptight Jane from Accounting or nervous Ned from H.R. relax and chip in. (more…)
Tags: Edu, Jeff DelPapa, Junkyard Wars, Scrapheap Challenge, the NERDS
Posted in Digital, Edu | View Comments
Le Whif looks kind of like a shotgun shell and it's packed with micro-chocolate buckshot
I thought I had heard of some pretty crazy inventions while writing for BostInnovation, but this next one really caught me off guard. A new product, invented by Harvard Professor David Edwards, allows you to ingest chocolate, or coffee by inhalation.
That’s not a typo. Consisting of a small plastic tube, Le Whif lets you breathe chocolate, and now coffee, to get your caffeine or sugar fix. Even more impressive – it’s less than one calorie per puff. When you use Le Whif, a fine mist of either chocolate or coffee covers your tongue, but is not actually inhaled into your lungs, giving you all of the flavor, and none of the calories.
You’d think inventing something like Le Whif was enough, but not for Professor Edwards. Le Whif is only one innovation that has sprung from a network of innovation centers called the ArtScience Labs, envisioned by Edwards in 2007, then founded and structured in 2008. (more…)
Tags: ArtScience Labs, Boston Innovation, Boston Startups, Boston Tech News, Edu, Harvard, Le Whif
Posted in Digital, Edu | View Comments
Boston wants that Google Fiber!
As far as local governments go, Boston is really killing it in the tech sector. Since winning two prestigious awards for iPhone apps, Boston’s local government continued to show passion for technology when Mayor Menino announced Boston “Google ready” with respect to Google’s new broadband network, Google Fiber.
Google Fiber (not a grainy cereal) is truly a new level of broadband, described by Google as “ultra-high speed,” and it boasts dizzying speeds of 1 gigabit per second. It is still in experimental stages, but Google will be testing these super-connections in a few trial locations across the country. The city of Boston has already applied to guinea pig the ground-breaking Internet service, and if/when awarded it could be one of the first locations to experience Google Fiber. That will make it one of the fastest cities on the net. (more…)
Tags: Boston Local Government, Boston Tech, Boston Tech News, Company News, Google Fiber
Posted in Around the Hub, Digital | View Comments
YouCastr lets you turn video uploads into cold hard cash
Have you ever uploaded a professional looking video to YouTube? Think people would pay to watch it? With YouCastr, producers can upload videos and set prices for viewing. YouCastr not only lets you market your uploaded videos, they let you do it for free. They make money by taking a 30% cut of anything you make. That way, you can upload as many videos as you want, and YouCastr only gets paid when you get paid.
Started three years ago, YouCastr actually began as a virtual sports bar, not a video marketplace. Founder Ariel Diaz had a vision of a social media outlet focused on sports, which included the option of uploading video and adding audio commentary.
The concept evolved, however, when people started to use the site as a means to broadcast sporting events that were not televised, such as college and high school sporting events. (more…)
Tags: Boston Startups, Boston Tech Companies, Boston Tech News, Company Profiles, Video Hosting, Youcastr
Posted in Digital | View Comments
Viximo monetizes the social net with virtual goods
As the social media scene continues to grow, more and more of real life starts to be emulated in the digital world as experiences and goods are ported over to virtual landscapes. We have virtual friends, virtual hobbies, pets, books, and lives.
It’s no wonder that the business of virtual goods has exploded from a North American market of $20 million to around $2 billion in just the last three years, according to Viximo co-founder, Brian Balfour (27).
Viximo is a company that has been riding the swelling tidal wave of virtual goods since May of 2007 by providing a platform that allows any social media site to quickly implement virtual goods. Virtual goods are the “new way to monetize the social web” says Balfour. With a background in the social media realm, Balfour watched the social media market explode in Asia, and with co-founder Sean Lindsay, created a company that would facilitate the rise of virtual goods in the U.S.
So what exactly are virtual goods? (more…)
Tags: Boston Startups, Company Profiles, social media, Virtual Goods, Viximo
Posted in Digital, Social Media | View Comments
Foos and Brews were had at HubSpot!
Last night was the third episode of the Tech Hub Foosball League, and the HubSpot team was gracious enough to hold the event at their Kendall Square office this week.
The event was held in the office lounge, and the atmosphere perfectly maintained the fun, laid back attitude the weekly event strives to achieve. Completing the setting, was a full blown fantasy baseball draft taking place in the middle of the room.
Though there was a group huddled around the foosball table, participants also enjoyed getting to know one another over ping pong, or beers and a slice of pizza.
HubSpot co-founder, Dharmesh Shah made an appearance, relaxing with the group and flexing his ping pong skills (I put up a good fight but he put the burners on in the second half of our match). (more…)
Tags: Bostn Tech Events, Hubspot, Tech Foosball
Posted in Around the Hub | View Comments
The Awesome is spreading...
I hope you remember The Awesome Foundation, one of the coolest organizations in Boston that funds ideas based not on the business model behind them but on “awesomeness.” The Awesome Foundation (AF) gives the wacky, fun, and completely novel a chance to materialize.
Awarding $1,000 grants each month, The Awesome Foundation recently announced their March winner: DIY biologist Charles Fracchia. What’s
Fracchia’s awesome idea?
Bioengineered inks derived from different colored plants that can be grown and used as ink in pens. (more…)
Tags: Boston funding, Company News, The Awesome Foundation
Posted in Around the Hub | View Comments
