While there, they started taking photos of wine labels at restaurants and realized there was an interesting use case for the iPhone. When Rosen returned to the United States, he put together a team of friends and launched the application six months later.

“We were basically trying to be the Google for wine,” said Rosen of his Cambridge-based company.

Since then, the application has been in three Apple commercials, been named one of the top 5 wine applications for the iPhone by Paul Mabray of Vintank, and been downloaded by a quarter of a million users. This all with virtually no marketing money spent.

Rosen says he chose to develop an application for the iPhone platform because he loves the focus on the product that the iPhone allows. However, a version for Android phones was released a couple weeks ago. There are now two versions of the application on each platform –  a free version and a paid version. The free version is ad supported, and users are able to store up to 10 wines in their virtual cellars. The paid version has no ads and no cellar limit.

Most people use Drync for wine they come across or wine that was recommended to them. Drync is really an application for anyone with an interest in wine. “I’m not a wine expert myself. I’m more in the novice category, but I’m interested in it,” said Rosen. “When I drink a wine, I want to remember it and possibly buy it, and that’s the use-case I targeted.”

Half of users don’t store wine at all – they just use Drync to search for wine reviews while at a restaurant or store. The other half of users have, on average, 10 wines stored in their virtual cellar. As a whole, users do over 100,000 searches per month. In addition, there are over 200,000 user reviews in the system, and users can view both the top rated wines and the most stored wines.

The App store currently has over 100 wine apps available for download on the iPhone. Drync differentiates itself by having the largest database of wine in the world. Over 1.2 million wines have been indexed so far. In addition, Drync has a sophisticated search function that analyzes what users type in and tries to figure out what they intended to type. Users can also purchase many of the wines they search for through a partnership Drync has with Wine.com.

While the application was originally targeted at 25- to 35-year-olds who have money to spend and for whom Rosen calls wine “the new beer,” Rosen discovered that the typical user is actually in his or her mid-forties, knows a lot about wine, and has a lot of money to spend on it. “On the one hand, you could say we missed the mark,” said Rosen. “On the other hand, you could say we stumbled into a really interesting category of people who are kind of obsessively into the product.”

Drync’s business model is based on both ad revenue and download revenue, but its main objective until recently has been to generate attention. Although 4 out of 5 startups Rosen has been a part of were venture backed, he decided not to raise venture capital for Drync because he felt that the process of raising money is too time consuming, and he wanted to focus on the product. Drync currently has the most downloads of any wine app, but, like other mobile app companies, generating enough revenue is still challenging. Nevertheless, Rosen does not think his company will deviate from wine anytime soon.

Although Drync is a mobile centric company, plans are in the works to release a new website that is an augmentation of the mobile experience. The website will allow visitors to search for wine, store wines, and get personalized wine recommendations based on what wines they have stored, as well as the ratings of other users. Look for that to launch soon.

Interested in Drync? Download the application, and follow Drync on Twitter.

As a college student, it happened to me a LOT. Sending presentations became a hassle. I had to put them on a thumb drive, or put the file into a Google doc and hope that the format was preserved. (It never was.) And nothing can be more infuriating when you’re on a deadline than finding out your file is just a tad too big to send through Email.

Episend are trying to change all that.

There are services that provide large file sharing, YouSendIt being one of the most well known, but they are all services you need to sign up for. That, in turn means another hoop to jump through and another password to remember — it can also make users worry about spammy Emails.

This is one place where Episend sets itself apart from the competition; ease of sign in. Episend allows you to sign in using your Google, Yahoo, or Facebook accounts.

Episend founder Richard DiBona told me that one of the reasons Episend is unique compared to its competitors is, “the fact that it was built 100% from the ground up to be completely integrated with the Amazon Web Services Cloud.”

As DiBona as told me, “starting a company like this with no funding would not have been possible even three years ago because it would have required a sizable upfront hardware investment.”

Epsisend is another example of how the cloud is changing the way we do business.

While Episend may sound much like other file sharing services, it has a number of features to eliminate the need to use multiple sites for multiple purposes.

Unlike services like YouSendit, Eipsend allows you to add previews, text and creative content along with your files. This allows the receiver to take a look at what was sent before completely downloading the file, which can be convenient and time saving.

Photo sharing sites seem somewhat pointless with Facebook being so easy to upload to, and that is true if all you want is for people to see your photos. Episend though, stores the original copy of the photo and videos you send, allowing people to download, edit, and print them easily.

One feature that really surprised me is Episend’s ability to allow you to automatically embed rich media content into websites. This feature is unique and offers appeal to a wide variety of people.

Dibona told me he originally went to design this service when he became frustrated with some Email delivery problems. At first, he set out to design a client more like Gmail or Yahoo mail, but found out that this was much more difficult, and providing a cloud service would be easier to design and solve a bigger problem for users.

Said DiBona: “They say most startups change paths from the original idea, and this is no different.”

This is a statement I know all entrepreneurs can get behind, because you almost never end up where you originally planned to start.

The one complaint I have of Episend is that while their site format is fairly intuitive, it is not visually appealing. This can turn people off, especially when they are used to Email clients being colorful and pretty, for lack of a better word, like Gmail and Yahoo.

Fortunately, DiBona told me we should expect a site redesign and application facelift coming up in the very near future.

Episend does somewhat limit the number of files you can share with its free service, as well as file size (50 MB), but their paid personal service raises the amount, and is only $15/year. The next step is the business/non-profit service that is $85/year, and pretty much eliminates all restrictions.

Just last month MITX confirmed Bostinno’s believe that Episend is a solid up-and-coming Boston-area company by giving them the PricewaterhouseCooper Promise Award. Last fall they were also named a semi-finalist for the Adobe MAX Award.

While Episend has received some very nice recognition, DiBona knows that his work is not done on improving his company’s product. He is looking for more people to get involved in Episend, and encourages any feedback of any kind.

Harmonix is nominated 7 times for Games Critics Awards Best of E3 2010

You may not know this about me, but I like to dance and I can bust a move if I do say so myself.

Since dancing is one of my “secret” talents, I was stoked to find out that local video game development company, Harmonix, based in Cambridge, Mass., has been nominated seven times in the Game Critics Awards Best of E3 2010.

Harmonix, the makers behind video games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Game Critics favorite, Dance Central, have developed some noteworthy technology and the best part about it? It’s the kind of technology that gets you dancing.

Yesterday, the Game Critics Awards announced their nominations for the best games at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the trade show for the computer and video games industry.

Judges for the Game Critic Awards are from 31 major gaming and news media outlets like: WIRED, GameSpy, G4, USA Today, VentureBeat, MTV, and GamesRadar. The Game Critics Awards consist of 16 categories, and nominations are given to games that are ahead of the trends for interactive entertainment.

Here’s where Harmonix scored:

Dance Central was nominated for:
Best of Show
Best Original Game

Best Social/Casual Game
Best Motion Simulation Game

Rock Band 3 was nominated for:
Best Hardware; Keyboard
Best Social/Casual Game

Rock Band 3 Pro was nominated for:
Best Hardware; Guitars

Get this: Dance Central hasn’t even been released yet. It is one of the games that will use Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox360; Kinect is Microsoft’s state-of-the-art controller-free video game platform. The Kinect will plug in to Xbox360 allowing you to control games like Dance Central with your movement and voice. You can think of Dance Central as a super updated Dance, Dance Revolution, because Dance Central shows you the dance move you’re supposed to hit on beat. The more beats and moves you hit, the faster you’ll move on to more difficult levels.

Here’s the demo from E3:

Dance Central, along with Rock Band 3 and Rock Band 3 Pro are expected to be released for the 2010 holiday season.

Now, for those of you claiming you have two left feet and can’t dance, you no longer have an excuse. Harmonix’s Dance Central is the answer and before we know it people are going to be dancing in the streets of Boston — something I would not have a problem with.

What do you think about about Harmonix’s nominations? Are you someone who would by Dance Central and the Kinect?

To learn more about Harmonix and Dance Central, follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook.

Are you in video gaming? Follow the gaming topic on Pinyadda for more gaming news.

The new application allows users to take first-person virtual tours of the interiors of over 500 Boston restaurants as well as providing menus, reviews, directions, and contact information for each location.

I had the opportunity to play with Everyscape Eats! Boston and was impressed by the quality of the experience. The virtual tour aspect of the product adds significantly to the search experience and the expected features (menu information, reviews, and location data) were well-executed and clearly presented. Compared to a typical experience with comparable products, I found Everyscape Eats! to be notably better.

Here’s a quick review of each of the two experience options for EveryScape Eats! Boston:

Browser-based Experience Review:

Bova on Everyscape Eats! Boston

The web version presents a simple list-style interface upon first arrival with the default mode of discovery set to search. Clicking on any restaurant listed brings the user to that establishment’s page.

I clicked on one of my favorite places in Boston, Bova’s Bakery (in the North End. The page is dominated by an interactive panel that loads quickly and encourages a user to take a visual tour.

Beneath the interactive module, contact information, a few information options, and a simple list of reviews are shown. I found the larger font and uncluttered visual appearance to be considerably more user friendly than other pages with similar intentions.

Compared to Bova’s Yelp page, the Everyscape page’s visual component made it far more approachable than Yelp’s text-heavy interface. Reviews (powered by Citysearch) were informative and generally jived with my knowledge of the place.

Bova's Yelp Page

I was also particularly impressed with way menus are displayed on EveryScape Eats! Boston, lightbox-style and with standard formatting. While it may seem like a small thing, anyone’s who’s been searching for a menu while hungry can attest that the experience can be frustrating at best, torturous at worst.

Social media channels for sharing are provided by a “Share This” widget and were easily accessible. Overall, the experience was entertaining, lightweight, and informative — about all you can ask from a product like this. Here’s a screencast of my experience with the web version:

Mobile-based Experience Review:

The mobile product experience was handicapped by network capacity — my iPhone 3G was unable to load the virtual tours when no WiFi was available — but when the experience was available, its functionality was impressive. A simple first screen used my location to find the nearest restaurants, allowed me to filter by multiple criteria, and provided easy access to the information I’m most likely to be looking for when using my phone, like a one-click phone number and the same simple, easy-to-read menu interface found in the web version.

The interactive tour feature is impressive for a mobile application and was a fairly full-featured experience, but I didn’t think it was particularly useful on the iPhone — the load times simply make it impractical for 90% of the use cases I envision.

The iPad may be the ideal device for Everyscape Eats! Boston. Imagine a group of friends around a coffee table, savoring cocktails and deciding on a dinner spot by passing around an iPad, each user taking virtual jaunts around the neighborhood.

While the mobile offering is useful, if not quite revolutionary, the Everyscape Eats! Boston web portal is, in my opinion, a significantly more useful and entertaining product that a lot of what’s out there today. Next time you’re looking for somewhere to eat, take a walk around the virtual world of EveryScape Eats! Boston first. You might find a hidden gem.

Everyscape is led by CEO Jim Schoonmaker and has received a total of $17.5M since 2005, with participating investors including New Atlantic Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Lanchpad Venture Group, Dace Ventures, and most recently SK Telecom Ventures. The company, which creates visual guides for local search, provides the visual local search technology behind Microsoft’s Bing Maps, Yahoo! Travel, and Starcite. Everyscape was founded in 2002 by MIT graduate Mok Oh.

To learn more about EveryScape Eats! Boston and EveryScape’s other offerings, be sure to follow EveryScape on Twitter.

DrinksOnTap is a Boston area iPhone (and now also iPad) developers’ meetup organized by Brookline’s Raizlabs. Monday night’s gathering featured the same free-style drinking and socializing that DrinksOnTap is known for, but this time it was all about the iPad. After people attending had a chance to share some job opportunities and mingle, Raizlabs kicked off the demos by showing off two of their already-released apps for the iPad, Ploid and SketchPad HD. Many others then followed suit and shared their stuff with the crowd.

Below are some of the awesome apps featured by our local talent that night:

Sketchpad HD – Created by Raizlabs, this $0.99 simple app is similar to the Notes app that comes with the iPad but adds a few much-needed features. In addition to simply taking notes, SketchPad HD also allows you to select from a variety of paper types (e.g., yellow-ruled, graph, white), draw on the page in a variety of colors, and even email out a PDF copy of your work.

Ploid – The second app demoed by Raizlabs, Ploid is the first four-player multitouch tabletop game available for the iPad. The app costs just $1.99 and is fun game that requires a quick eye, speedy fingers, and a sharp brain. Think of it almost as a more mature, digital, version of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

3D Checkers – Playing checkers is fun, but playing checkers on an iPad is super fun. Kaduco Games gave the crowd a preview of their upcoming iPad checkers game. The iPhone and iPod Touch versions are available in the app store, but stay tuned for the iPad version to appreciate the game it its full 1028×768 pixel glory.

CourseNotes – For about half the price of a six-pack, CourseNotes is the perfect companion for any student. Developed by Jonathan Klein, this app is a feature-packed and versatile note-taking utility that’s perfect for both students managing their academics and anyone that’s looking to easily create, manage, and share lists, to-dos, and notes.

Beatbox Pad –  Turn your iPad into a musical instrument for just $0.99 with this app from Brian Schachter. Beatbox Pad features an array of colorful buttons that fill the iPad’s beautiful display, allowing both kids and adults to easily create some beats for any party from the 28 total drum sounds and samples available.

Other apps also presented include a travel app called Goby, a soccer (or “football” for you non-Yanks) app called iFooty World Plus, and a yet-to-be-released sheet music app that any musician would drool over. I apologize to anyone I’ve missed – blame the 9.9% Double Amber Ale I was drinking that night.

All before ever having a chance to play with an actual iPad, Boston designers and developers were hard at work coming up with some great projects for the new device. DrinksOnTap is a great example of how the local mobile community comes together to have fun, share ideas, and ultimately grow stronger and smarter as a result. We definitely suggest that you all try some of the apps listed above and support our local talent. SketchPad HD is currently ranked #21 out of all paid iPad app — join the effort to push them to #1!

SCVNGR gave me the run-around, so in the future I'm leaving my phone behind

For those of you who haven’t heard of SCVNGR, it’s a Boston-based startup that allows users to create and deploy interactive scavenger hunt games hosted on mobile devices. These so-called SCVNGRs aren’t like the ones from your middle school birthday party, and can take you anywhere from a tour of the MFA, to an exploration of the whole city and beyond.

There are a lot of applications and themes for these interactive mobile adventures, one being fitness.

Since the sun was out and the thermometer was pushing 50 degrees, (unlike the last few days during which I seriously considered building an ark) I decided to sign up for a SCVNGR workout along the Charles River yesterday. All you have to do it sign up on SCVNGR by entering your cell number and some other info, then you can make your own SCVNGRs or find one someone else made. I didn’t see much fun in working out to a route I made, so I signed up for SCVNGR’s own, called Exercise Endeavor: Boston.

Unfortunately, I would soon find out that when it comes to a workout, SVNGR is a lot more like a needy girlfriend than a personal trainer.

Before I get into my experience with SVNGR, I should mention that I do not have a smartphone. My phone is, in fact, pretty dumb. That being said, SVNGR does provide options for people like me, resulting in a fully text-based experience. Other alternatives include using your phone’s web browser and a downloadable iPhone app, both of which probably would have been somewhat easier.

Ok, so armed with my dumbphone I head out the door and jogged to the starting point (Harvard Bridge on Mass Ave.) This wasn’t too bad for me since I live about a half mile away in Back Bay. It might not be worth the trek for others, but this isn’t the only SVNGR of its kind, and anyone is free to design one for his or her area.

From the base of the bridge I texted START to the number designated, and waited for a reply. After about thirty seconds I got a return text, but it definitely wasn’t telling me to start anything. Instead, it familiarized me with the HINT command, which prompts exercise descriptions during the workout, and asked me to reply with the word HINT. Ok, helpful I suppose. After sending HINT, getting a reply, texting the word SWEAT, another reply, and finishing with GO, the workout finally began… with stretching!! I had texted five messages so far and, besides the jog to the starting point, hadn’t exercised anything but my thumbs and my patience.

I stuck with it though, and after getting the stretching done, I sent STRETCH, and was instructed to run until I saw a playground. After texting to let it know I was there, and waiting about 15 seconds for a reply, I was instructed to do lunges in a specified area. Once I finished, I texted LUNGE as instructed, but SVNGR didn’t seem to believe me, and asked how many benches there were in my lunge area. I answered correctly, being rewarded with a “fun” fact about how many calories are on the back of a postage stamp. By this time any heart rate I had built up had now faded.

The next exercise was pull-ups in the playground, but I wasn’t the only one inspired to spend some time outside, so I opted out of a creepy inmate workout in front of toddlers and their parents. It was pretty easy to fake — I just texted PULLUP and answered the subsequent question to confirm the number of swing sets in the playground.

I won’t detail every exercise, but things continued like this for pushups, crunches, more running and squats. At the squats, however, my patience gave out. Upon finishing the 3 sets of 10, I texted SQUAT, and received a question so vague that I couldn’t answer it correctly (something about a shape on the pavement).

After fifteen minutes of guessing wrong, asking for hints, and guessing wrong again, I was informed that I did not successfully perform the squat portion of the workout — awesome. I actually wasn’t too disappointed because the squats were a good workout, but I wondered how the creator of this SCVNGR decided that identification of shapes in asphalt is proof of physical activity.

After walking back to the finish for cool-down, I texted WALK, and the workout was over.

So if you haven’t gathered it from my description, my number one complaint with this particular SVNGR workout was that the texting took too long! There were way too many texts to send and half of them weren’t close to necessary. It’s kind of fun to answer questions about the spot you just ran to, but who is cheating on these things? First of all, counting benches does nothing to prove I did any lunges, and secondly, why would I get dressed up in workout gear and run to the Charles just to BS a robot through my phone? Though answering questions about where you are might be fun during a tour of Boston, during a workout it’s frivolous and borderline insulting to the athlete.

So if you’re going to try SVNGR I’d suggest going for tours or other activities. Though iPhone or web apps might make the workout a little less painful, you’ll still have to answer Exercise Endeavor’s meaningless questions. You can try other SVNGRs, or make your own, but on my next workout, the phone is staying home where it belongs.

Despite this difficult single use-case, we think SCVNGR is one of the coolest startups in Boston and you can bet we’ll continue to follow their activity here on BostInnovation. For more on the company, be sure to check out their website, scvngr.com, and follow them on Twitter @scvngr.

The Vizit is not your average digital photo frame ...It's ALIVE!

If your grandmother is anything like mine, she’s probably still watching the same photos you loaded into the digital photo frame you gave her as a gift four years ago.

Last week, I got a chance to sit down with Matthew Growney, the CEO of Concord-based Isabella Products, to talk about Isabella’s first mobile-enabled gadget: The Vizit

What’s more, I got to play with a prototype version!

The Vizit is going to be released on March 23 at next week’s CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas, Nev. Essentially, it’s what digital photo frames should have been when they hit the market years ago in that it lets you send and receive fresh photos via the AT&T 3G mobile network in minutes.

Pics and images can be shared with a Vizit owner from mobile devices in about two minutes using Email or text message, and users will also be able to share photos through Flickr and Photobucket, or by uploading them to a browser-based account page called “VizitMe.”

That means you can snap a picture with your smart phone and fire it over to granny in no time at all. Here’s a quick video we made while Growney was in the house.

Growney shows me how to take an iPhone pic and send it to the Vizit in minutes!

The Vizit will feature a 10.4-inch full touch screen display, and an unbelievably intuitive interface. Growney noted that the fact that all the options and lists are carousels so you can never get lost in the software. Plus, the Vizit will be able to receive photos from LIFE.com, so even if your family isn’t nice to look at, you can still load up cool pics regularly.

The screen is a matte finish, and, while it requires a bit of a harder touch than my iPhone, it should be pretty durable. Plus, it’s easy to detach from the base of the frame, which houses all the brains of the Vizit. That means upgrading to a different or larger screen in a few months will be a snap.

The downside?

It’s retailing for $279.99 plus you have to pay for the VizitMe account on a monthly or yearly basis. At $6 per month or $72 per year, that will add up. If you choose to opt out of the VizitMe account, it will remain active for a year so you won’t lose your photos. Plus, you’ll always be able to upload photos with the USB port and SD card slot whether you pay for the service or not.

Still, the fact that this thing can send and receive photos and retails at a price that competes with high-end digital frames with no connectivity makes it a really cool device, in my opinion. After tapping it for an hour, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I’d like to have a set of feeds for image-based content on it: Imagine getting news, weather and sports fed into a device like the Vizit in real time. That would make a touch screen image frame like the Vizit a worthwhile addition to my work desk — not just something that makes me think about not visiting my grandmother enough when I see it.

For more on the Vizit and Matthew Growney, be sure to check out vizitme.com. Check back here for more of Isabella Products mobile-enabled devices coming soon… Shhhhh. The next one will be a childrens’ tablet called the Fable.

This local company is dead set on making the Internet more manuverable

As social media becomes more mainstream, one major problem poses an ever increasing threat to all of our online activity: Managing multiple social media and other online accounts as we enter new forums.

One thing about the Internet is that it’s so darn enticing. Even if your grandma just got a computer and Email a year ago, there’s a good chance she now has a Snapfish.com account, or is looking for love on SeniorsCircle.com. (Sorry grandpa.)

The proliferation of account-based sites is something that bothers Michael Durwin, the founder and “chief idea guy” at Boston-based Rangl.me (formerly Gathr.me). As a creative director and user experience pro, Durwin finds it tough to manage all his work and personal accounts effectively.

Rangl.me was born out of that frustration about a year ago, and although it’s still completely under wraps, Durwin agreed to sit down with me last week to talk about his vision for the product. He’s well aware of the challenges he faces, both in the construction of Rangl.me and in it’s deployment from a legal standpoint. But that’s not stopping him; he’s hell bent on making the Internet easier for you to use and a whole lot less fragmented.

Note: Rangl.me is still in the ideation phase, so prepare to use your imagination.

Essentially what Durwin is building is a browser-based dashboard you can sign into with one password. (It’s a password manager, but just wait. It’s so much more!) That dashboard then signs you in to all your favorite online hovels and hideouts. In Durwin’s dreams, Rangl.me will find every account you have online, categorize those sites by type — say, Social Networks, Shopping Sites, Email Accounts, etc.

But those dreams are becoming a reality, according to him.

If you spend any time online, you likely already use the “bookmarks” feature in your browser, no matter which browser is your go-to. If “bookmarks” functionality is the Wright Flyer, pioneering easier navigation online, Rangl.me will be will be an F-16 Fighting Falcon, taking you where you want to go faster by letting you bypass login screens and dropping bombs – the ultimate vision for the product is an interface that would allow you to upload a picture to Rangl.me, which the software would then post to your Flickr, Facebook and Shutterfly pages automatically.

On this level, we can envision a big browser dashboard that toggles into a smaller version, which fits neatly into the top of your screen and travels around with you as you surf the web.

The idea seems to be that by creating a smarter navigation system – complete with mouse-over actions that keep you informed (think: “You have 3 new Facebook messages”) the Rangl.me interface could make it much easier to interact with more communities online.

Rangl.me will take all the crap you do (left) and put you at the center of the experience (right).

Durwin calls it a solution for “managing your online presence.”

“It’s not a super universal FriendFeed,” he cautions. “It’s not one place that aggregates everything all your friends say that will allow you to respond to everything once and have that go out to every channel. There’s too many legal hurdles to that.”

What it will deploy, however, is a system of typified universal uploaders: Change your status on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter by entering text into one “micro-blog” box on the Rangl.me dashboard. Post your long-form thoughts to multiple blogs with a simple stroke of the return key. Share videos to multiple platforms in a myriad of formats (QuickTime, Flash, .mov,  and .mp4) automatically since Rangl.me will know what format constraints each of these host sites is limited to, and will re-format your files for you.

Sound like overkill?

“We want to offer all the functionality that power users want and realize that 99% of our users will only use 10% of what it will do,” says Durwin. “The passive user of today that has an Email account and belongs to Facebook is the power user of tomorrow.”

Sound too good to be true?

It does to me, but I don’t have the same vision (or, admittedly, the same experience with user interfaces) Durwin does. The problem with mass aggregation of user-generated content – say, taking all your friends’ Twitter updates and all their Facebook updates and hosting them in one location is that this user-generated content is extremely valuable to the host sites. Lawsuits would be unavoidable in a large-scale deployment. To be sure, Facebook wouldn’t make any money if you didn’t have to go to their site and view their adds to see that your friends just posted a picture of you barfing from last weekend’s party.

But this is not what Durwin’s Rangl.me is trying to do. The product will simply let you project your updates and additions to the conversation out. It’s a one-way street. The problem that initially strikes me about this is that so much of social media and online community building today is the conversation. Interactivity is key, and it implies that you listen and talk in equal parts (or at least theoretically. We all know most Twitter users are just listening.)

The bad news: You’ll still have to visit Facebook to see what everyone is saying.

The good news: Rangl.me hopes to streamline that process by way of this supercharged bookmark system.

You’ll put your cursor on the Facebook tab, and that will inform you a little bit about what’s happening with that account. Then you’ll click it and it will drop you on the site.

To get a little bit clearer picture of what Rangl.me is trying to do, check out this video Durwin posted on Vimeo:

Rangl.Me Pitch Video from michael durwin on Vimeo.

What do you think? Could something like Rangl.me work for you, or are your visits to hot spots online too few and far-between to warrant it? What will a middle-of-the-road Internet power user look like in five years?

For more on Rangl.me, be sure to look for Durwin at SXSW when it kicks off. You can also follow him on Twitter @mdurwin.

T Tracker is new!

Have you ever heard the local urban legend that many of the streets in Boston began as wandering cow paths, which turned into cart paths, which turned into major roadways?

We all know that getting around the Boston metro area can be a pain, even for the most seasoned veterans. But with the advent of the iPhone, some of those difficulties have been seriously relieved. Here’s a list of three iPhone Apps that will certainly help you leverage the technology in your pocket to ease your frustrations about what could be the most confusing transportation grid in metropolitan America:

The links in each heading will take you to more info from these companies; a quick search of the titles in the iPhone App Store is sure to lead you to the proper applications.

1) Taxi Magic

Taxi Magic even lets you pay with your iPhone

When I first moved to Boston in 2002, there wasn’t much that was more confusing than tracking down a cab. The obvious problem with Boston’s taxi system is that cab companies are often only allowed to pick up patrons in specific parts of the city. Remember the first time you approached a cab people were getting out of only to be told you couldn’t get in the now-empty cab because it wasn’t the cabbie’s territory? Taxi Magic remedies this issue in a simple, yet elegant way. After locating you geographically, Taxi Magic provides a one-click-to-call list of the cab companies that are allowed to pick up in your area. Certain companies even provide messages about the status of your cab and a fully functional map to show you exactly where your cab is after it’s been dispatched. After you’ve arrived at your destination, you can even pay for your cab via your iPhone! Taxi Magic is making taxi service simple, and we love it. (Taxi Magic is also available for Blackberry.)

2) T Tracker

T Tracker rocks and could get even better if you use it

T Tracker is brand new and it’s come about as a result of MassDOT’s fantastic open source efforts. In short, the MBTA understands that your needs may best be addressed by third-party developers and entrepreneurs, and they’re doing everything possible to make sure that data about where buses and subway trains are is available in realtime to those external companies. T Tracker is currently providing realtime locations for buses on five metro bus routes. We think this already makes taking the bus to get where you need to be on time easier and more effective, but we’re really encouraging you to use it because it’s part of a beta test the MBTA is conducting to find out how best to allocate tech funding and resources. The MBTA has already partnered with Google Transit to make searching for routes easy using your built-in Maps application. By using T Tracker now, you’ll be telling the MBTA that this kind of service should be provided for all the subway, bus and ferry lines in the metro area. Start using it now, and you’ll not only be training yourself to use your iPhone to make transit decisions in realtime, you’ll also be acting as an early adopter for the MBTA so they know that this kind of info is valuable to tech-savvy users such as yourself! (T Tracker’s times can also be accessed from non-iPhones, but as The Boston Globe recently discovered, you’ll have to remember your stop number to use it.)

3) Zipcar

Zipcar makes it too easy

Zipcar is a home-grown company, and they’ve revolutionized what it means to get around Boston (and over 60 other cities). Their iPhone App is fantastic, and not only helps you reserve and locate your Zipcar, it even lets you honk the horn and unlock the doors from your iPhone! Need more time added to your reservation? No problem with the iPhone App. Having trouble finding your car? No sweat. If you’re currently navigating Boston without a car, you should consider Zipcar because it’s totally cutting edge and environmentally advantageous. If you have a car in town you don’t use much, consider Zipcar as an alternative to that heavy excise tax levied on you annually at this time of year. The Zipcar App makes using Zipcar extremely easy, and even more desirable. We love the added value it supplies to an already great service.

Have an iPhone-based navigation device that’s changed the way you get around Boston? Let us know in the comments section. For more on each of these companies, click the links in the title of each section.

Shortbord could mean $ in your pocket!

So you’re into social media. You understand the value of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Maybe people hang on your every Facebook comment and you know how to engage an online audience like it’s your job…

But what if it was?

I mean what if things like: tweeting, reviewing on Yelp and commenting on blog posts — the stuff you likely do on a regular basis as a member of the online community at large — were things you got paid for?

Sound too good to be true?

Boston-based startup shortbord just might have some news for you.

Shortbord, which is currently in private beta, promises to help you “get sponsored to surf the web.” It was founded in July of 2009, and it’s three co-founders (former business associates at Fidelity Equity Partners) are determined to make users and the sites they frequent the newest landscape for online advertising. Essentially, their plan is to monetize user generated content. What does that mean?

They want to pay you to host small ads on your social media posts.

“This is a very valuable ad unit,” says Mike York, one of shortbord’s co-founders. “We say our product is like wearing a T-shirt and the web is like a big party. The T-shirt doesn’t get in the way of the party, but it’s there nonetheless and it leverages the influence of the person that’s wearing [a brand's] T-shirt.”

shortbord's presentation materials from MIT (taken from their blog)

York, 28, and the other two co-founders, Dave Nemeskal and Dusty Lieb, wowed the crowd at the MIT Start-Up Showcase in December and earned a chance to pitch their company in front of 500 attendees at the 12th Annual MIT Venture Capital Conference the next day.

MIT went so well, they opened the site up to the public, but then took it offline again a few weeks later. It wasn’t ready.

Since then, they’ve been working day and night behind closed doors. According to York, it should be available to the public again in the very near future. (He wouldn’t give an exact launch date, but admitted that yesterday marked the end of a big development push.)

Shortbord is coming. Here’s how York and his friends intend to re-invent advertising for everything you post, tweet, comment and review:

Step 1) You become a “surfer” at shortbord and pick a brand (or two?) you’re cool with “wearing” around the web.

Step 2) You go about your daily activity and every time you interact on a site partnered with shortbord, a company logo for the brand of your choice appears next to whatever you write.

Step 3) You reap the rewards of a little cash in pocket (which I’ll talk about in a second) and you also score sweet deals and discounts from the company whose “T-shirt you’re wearing.” Your ads, in turn, lead your friends to group deals from that brand that also offer them discounts.

From here you’re probably having one of two reactions:

Reaction 1) Cool, I hope they have the sites I use and the companies I support.
Reaction 2) Ew, my friends would hate it if I started plugging Wal-Mart for spare change.

-CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE-
(Or do like I did as a kid and read straight through)

______________________________________________________________________________

If you decide to be an optimist, turn to Page 7.
If you decide to barf instantly at the thought of ads on your stuff, turn to Page 24.

Response to Reaction 1)

Shortbord is proposing what entrepreneurs call a win-win-win situation.

Users get the rewards mentioned above, plus a potentially vibrant ecosystem of competition, where they can vie for top billing among all reps for the brands they’re promoting. (If you’ve ever been a mayor on Foursquare,  you’re probably shouting.)

Companies paying for advertising space get an engaged core of reps willing to show support for them publicly in online forums, plus their brands are being promoted by real people doing what they do. They’re NOT Tweeting an ad for a company every day like Kim Kardashian. These same real people would probably be willing to tell you why they like their shortbord T-shirt brands if you ask them. Hello, inbound marketing!

The third “win” in this scenario involves partner sites like blogs, Twitter apps, and other social media hangouts getting a piece of the action. Shortbord will pay partner sites for ad space they’re not even renting to anyone yet — space on the content their users leave behind.

Response to Reaction 2)

The people wearing the “T-shirts” get paid based on a special formula York calls shortbord’s “secret sauce.” A person’s payout will be based on their user engagement and overall reach. How many partner sites do they engage in? How many people do they influence? How many people click the links they share? York wouldn’t talk specifically about this formula, but did reveal that each user will be given a RIDE score, which stands for “Reach, Influence, Distribution and Engagement.”

At any rate, without a look at how people are using shortbord — it’s technically not alive right now — it’s hard to give solid insights. (Your glasss-is-half-empty mind, that old devil on your shoulder, might be right after all.)

Still, the idea of shortbord in my daily social media activity (however pitiful it may be of late) resonates with me. My mind swims with the prospect of knowing behind each friend’s special seal of approval, each personal real estate ad, would be a high value group buying deal (similar to BuyWithMe) from a company I already buy stuff from, another facet of the shortbord plan. Some of my friends might even see their brands as badges of influence. Who knows? I guess we’ll have to wait and see what kind of tide shortbord rides in on when they roll out their site again.

To be continued…

Register for shortbord now at shortbord.com and you’ll be notified when it’s back online. You can follow them on Twitter @shortbord. Also, be sure to check out their blog for updates: shortbord.tumblr.com

In a much stronger show of force than any of the other pro sports league in America, Major League Baseball presents team content in a unified front. It’s all about equality in content for all teams. That means the Kansas City Royals have the exact same layout and content design as the Red Sox. All the teams are offshoots of the battleship that is MLB.com.

All MLB sites use the same templates and content management system (CMS). The only thing that sets them apart is the content itself. In Boston, we rely on Ian Browne to keep our home team’s site informative. As the team’s beat writer for MLB.com, he’s the connection to quality Sox content at RedSox.com. His work lands on the top left in a slide show with content promoting MLB.com’s products. The MLB stuff is the same on every team page except it’s disguised as team-specific, so you’ll have to make sure you’re reading his work and not the work of “The Man.”

There’s also plenty of video on the top right in the “Video Corner.” (What the MLB lacks in creativity, they make up for in simplicity and ease of use.) A bit of deep diving reveals a slew of affiliated Sox blogs, a message board for fans to connect on, multiple Twitter accounts and a Facebook presence boasting 946,088 fans.

The team’s effort to attain a Twitter following has been pretty lackluster so far. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a strikeout, but RedSox.com is definitely bunting a lot when it comes to the communication they engage in using Twitter. Their best accounts are @RedSox and @RedSoxInsider, but if they don’t pick up the slack soon, our own @JennieWhite could be giving them a run for their money in terms of following in a few short months. (Haha.) Sox owner John Henry has a Twitter account with a decent following but he obviously doesn’t “get it” since he’s only following six people back.

Where applications are concerned, MLB.com has created a toolbar add-on you can install, but it’s just a way of keeping Browne’s writing and MLB’s content on your browser. It’s nothing to write home about if you’re really looking for lots of high quality content on the Sox. (It isn’t even supported on Google Chrome!)

All-in-all, RedSox.com is pretty close to being a non-factor in terms of generating content for their own brand. It’s almost as though baseball’s answer to the question of web presence is to let other outlets handle it.

What do you think? Are big content controllers (in this case, MLB) with many legs of “customized”  distribution (like RedSox.com) a viable model for future consumers? What does the MLB gain by keeping things uniform?

When you consider that it was the first official team website in pro sports, it’s not surprising that Patriots.com has more to offer than the Raiders site and the Lions site combined. In fact, there’s so much going on inside Patriots.com that the first place you land when you visit is a nice little splash page to point out the most vibrant and current content. The Pats host live audio and video content regularly, and encourage fans to dig into the site’s Fan Zone section to connect with each other and talk pigskin.

To be short, Patriots.com is a destination by design.

That doesn’t mean the team is hard to find on social media. Like many other pro sports teams, the Pats jumped on the social media band wagon this season.

“We use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to reach, engage, and interact with fans that may not be regular visitors of Patriots.com,” said Jana Gauthier, Patriots.com’s Director of New Media Services. “It’s a great way to introduce them to our content and digital experience. We feature news, live media, video, audio, photos, and assorted ways for fans to interact with the Patriots directly or each other.”

Patriots.com hosts four different Twitter accounts: @RealPatriots, @PatriotsDotCom, @PatriotsProShop and @TheHall, which is the Twitter account for the new Patriots museum, called The Hall at Patriot Place. Perhaps the most relevant account is @RealPatriots with 33,697 followers. That account is operated mostly by Stacey James, the Pats VP of Media Relations. If there’s news to share, James usually tries to deliver it to fans directly through this account. The team’s Facebook Page is also pimped out (check the Fan Zone tab)and currently boasts 165,246 fans.

To add even more engagement to the site, Patriots.com has invested in an arsenal of applications related to their content, including a brand new iPhone App. If you’re not impressed with it, don’t worry. The iTunes page says there’s more coming. Another pretty fantastic app they’ve developed is DeskSite, which is a desktop application for viewing their professionally created, high res video content.

The Patriots content is spearheaded by Fred Kirsch, the Editor in Chief of Patriots Football Weekly. His staff of Pats personalities includes Andy Hart and Paul Perillo, both of whom are legit news men and champions of the written word. Patriots Football Weekly, by the way, is the team’s in-house newspaper, and all their insider content is available online with a paid subscription.

If the Patriots deliver content by the truckload, the only thing that’s lacking is player-generated content. While the Broncos and other teams have adopted the personal-branding shift in online content, allowing players to write and share content with fans directly. Whether it’s by design or not, The Patriots players are unbelievably hard to find on Twitter, Facebook and Patriots.com. If you want to know about them, however, there’s no shortage of content on current and former players.

What do you think of the content on Patriots.com? Is a new era of in-house content taking over where traditional media outlets fall short?  Should they let the players write directly to fans? Share your comments below.

Kevin Garnett is embracing Facebook

Not everyone is into Twitter, but most likely you’re on Facebook. Do you want to check-in with your favorite Celtics players? Now you don’t have to wait for tonight’s game, instead become their fan on Facebook. A lot of these pages have been created by fans, but that’s cool because it’s still a way to get involved with the Celtics community.

Here’s the rundown of the Celtics on Facebook and what you can expect to find on their pages.

1) Paul Pierce- 44,034 fans- Paul Pierce’s Facebook page is very active and whoever is behind his Facebook page knows what they’re doing. On the homepage they’re streaming blog posts from his website paulpierce.net and he’s also giving his fans access to photos and one awesome video.

2) Shelden Williams- 34,619 fans- Shelden Williams lets the fans do the talking on his page. With 34,619 fans the homepage is filled with words of praise and well wishes for Williams. It even looks like  Shelden Williams is doing the status updates himself.

3) Kevin Garnett-11,774 fans- Now this is a page worth talking about. The people behind Garnett’s page are embracing multimedia and giving Garnett fans plenty of videos, pictures, and cool blog posts. Fans are showing him love with encouraging wall posts and he’s getting about a post an hour from fans.

4) Brian Scalabrine-55,072 fans- Brian Scalabrine has one of the largest Facebook followings out of of the Celtics. The huge number of fans is  surprising considering the page’s content. The fans have taken over Scalabrine’s page and are either rooting for him or yelling at him. There are a couple of videos and pictures sprinkled throughout the page, but we’re not impressed.

5) Rajon Rondo-76,069 fans- We’re pretty excited about Rajon Rondo’s fan page. The page has solid video and picture content from both Rondo and the fans. The coolest part about Rondo’s page is his “Gift Store,” a Facebook application that lets you give fellow fans virtual Rondo gifts.

6) Marquis Daniels-427 fans- Marquis Daniels Facebook page is lacking, it mostly consists of fans giving shout-outs to Daniels or attempting to push their products on him. Alright, we’re going to go ahead and say it, Daniels page is boring. Daniels, it’s time to pick up your Facebook game.

7) Kendrick Perkins-53,894 fans- If you want to talk about all things related to Kendrick Perkins become a fan. Perkins’ fans are actively commenting and shouting out words of encouragement. Perkins’ isn’t updating, but  it’s worth joining the page for Perkins’ awesome fans.

We found some inactive fans pages as well. If you have time, fan them and start building a community. Here’s a lists of pages that need some help:
-Ray Allen- 73,714 fans.

-J.R Giddens- 284 fans.

-Eddie House-13,949 fans.

-Bill Walker- 245 fans.

-Rasheed Wallace- 15,549 fans.

Show our Celtics some love and fan them on Facebook. Combine Celtics fans and Facebook and you’ve got some entertaining content. If we left any players out let us know in the comments.

Are you going to fan these players on Facebook?

While you’re on checking out the Celtics on Facebook, fan BostInnovation.

If there’s one thing Boston Celtics fans like, it’s feeling connected to their team.

Before, the team connected with you through on-camera interviews and local sports coverage. Today, it means getting news straight from the horse’s mouth and showing your support through social media. As demand for interaction has increased over the last few years, the Celtics have reacted, creating more nodes of communication in online forums. Their best efforts have been rewarded on Facebook and Twitter and at Celtics.com.

The Celtics are always looking for new opportunities to engage our fans in the digital space, and this season we’ve taken it to the next level across several different platforms. Our philosophy is simple: The Celtics need to have a presence on all of the social media outposts where our fans are congregating.

For more on the Celtics, be sure to check out Celtics.com, fan them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

How is "the cloud" changing the landscape?

Traditional software licensing models are being challenged by new hardware and software deployment options.

Gone are the days when users had to own their hardware infrastructure. Gone are the days of getting approval for the purchase of big ticket items like servers and desktops, configuring them, and maintaining them to run their perpetually-licensed software in-house.

Cloud Computing  = Opportunity
Today, users can obtain “hardware on the fly” to run any operating system on arbitrarily large servers “in the cloud.” These virtual systems may persist indefinitely or can be abandoned when no longer needed. The software on them may be used for only a short burst of time – just enough to get the job done – measured in days or even hours. Likewise, paying for “cloud-time” is easy, often requiring nothing more than a credit card.

The biggest industry players are driving the cloud movement. Folks like Amazon.com, Google, IBM, and Microsoft are leveraging their enormous investment in computing hardware and advanced virtualization software to build on-demand computing platforms. Corporate users, tired of paying to maintain in-house “iron,” are increasingly looking to reduce costs with cloud computing, while at the same time simplifying procurement, decreasing deployment delays, and adding unprecedented throughput potential.

Re-thinking Software Licensing Models
As a result, enterprise-class software vendors are thinking about new licensing models.  Many vendors have already turned to subscription based models where customers pay for software monthly, or annually. But, with cloud computing, users may want to pay by the day, hour, or even minute. This puts new stresses on the traditional pricing and licensing models on which software vendors’ revenue streams depend. But, cloud computing could open untapped markets for some software vendors’ products, especially those that carry a high per-seat cost, by allowing them to provide convenient access to their software on “big iron” at a much lower price point.

Perhaps software vendors need to move more rapidly toward “post-use-billing” models. Software applications could connect to a central server to collect usage information, either clock time, or a more precise measure of the amount of work (value) that was derived from a usage session.

Keeping up with the Pace of Change
Cloud computing is just the latest disruptive technology trend that is forcing independent software vendors to look for new ways to license their software products. Companies who use electronic license management are in the best position to keep pace with and take advantage of the ever-changing computing landscape so that their billing methods can adapt with changing demands.

To learn more about Bob Reynolds and the Reprise team, please check out their site: RepriseSoftware.com. Thanks go out to him for becoming BostInnovation’s first expert contributor. If you or someone you know is interested in sharing expert insights, please contact us at info [at] bostinnovation [dot] com.

Firefox add-ons make using Google services easier than ever.

Back at work and looking to save time this year? Pairing Firefox add-ons with Google is like using up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start at the office!

If you’re an avid Firefox user, you probably know that there are thousands of Firefox add-ons to make your browsing experience better. These are generally easy to install and remove, and they can make repetitive tasks much less time consuming.

If you use Google services, you know it can be difficult to utilize them all without spending a ton of time opening and closing browsers.

Put the two together and BAM! You’ve got some killer add-ons that make using Google faster and easier. Here are five combos that rock:

1. Google Toolbar
The add-on by the Google geeks themselves: From your Firefox toolbar you can Google-search. (Who would have guessed?) More importantly, you are also able to shortcut to all kinds of Google services with customizable buttons. Throw in thousands of non-Google buttons (including Facebook, Youtube, Pacman, and just about anything else you can think of), and you’ve got an indispensable add-on for everyone on this thing we call the interweb.

2. Google Shortcuts
Though Google Shortcuts also provides you with some taskbar buttons to shortcut Google services, it keeps things simple and down-to-business. The buttons are limited to Google services including Gmail, maps, notebook, transit, etc. Some of Google Shortcuts’ features may be redundant to the Google Toolbar add-on, but as they say, different strokes for different folks. So if you’re looking to avoid the temptation of adding the Super Mario World button to Google Toolbar, look to Google Shortcuts to keep you focused.

3. Gmail Manager
For those of us with multiple Gmail accounts, it can seem like you spend half of your day logging in and out of Gmail. The Gmail Manager add-on lets you access all of your accounts from an icon at the bottom of your browser window. Just add your accounts and switch between work and personal with an easy click.

4. GCal Popup
With GCal Popup, you can pull up your Google Calendar instantly as a pop-up that overlays on the current browser window. You can edit and organize the calendar from there, too. This is a must-have for people who rely on Google Calendar. Stop wasting time linking through Gmail every time you need to remember whether that dentist appointment is for 1:00 or 1:30.

5. Integrated Gmail
Integrated Gmail saves time when you’re logged into Gmail, but need to use other Google services in the same window. It displays any other Google services you want as expandable tabs right above your inbox. If a buddy sends you an address, just open the maps tab and plug it in for directions — all in the same window. Integrated Gmail simply keeps your browser neat and clean.

Got a Firefox add-on that you think rocks with Google? Drop us a comment and let us know.

Turn bubble sheets into analytics with Socrato

For me, standardized testing always seemed a cruel and impersonal judgment of knowledge: Students fill in bubbles with a  No. 2 pencil and get a numeric score from a heartless robot.

Such a system leaves no opportunity to learn from your mistakes. Boston-based Socrato changes all that by offering online standardized tests with analyzed results displayed in graphs that help students (and parents) learn exactly where they can improve.

• Socrato’s History and Goals
  

Socrato is a new software-based service that allows standardized test-takers to take practice tests online — including SATs, ACTs, MCAS and U.S. Citizenship at present — and receive detailed analysis of their answers aimed at revealing weaknesses, identifying strengths, and pinpointing areas in need of improvement.

Founder Raju Gupta has worked with data analytics for Bank of America and Fidelity, where he “got to see a lot of complex technology.” One day in 2006, he was helping his niece prepare for the SATs, and as she filled out her bubble sheet, he began to wonder,”Can you harvest knowledge from this?”

He found that bubble sheets have much more to share than simple test scores.

Gupta started working on Socrato in 2007, and the product was launched in mid 2008. With Socrato analyses, Raju explains, test information is analyzed from “hundreds of angles.” The data in web-based bubble sheets can be interpreted to create anything from simple graphs of performance by section, to breakdowns of point costs so that students can determine where to concentrate their study efforts when preparation time is in short supply.

Raju’s main goal for Socrato is to “help students and teachers better understand student needs.” For this reason, Socrato is being distributed to tutoring centers and schools, granting teachers and tutors specific knowledge about each student for better one-on-one preparation.

• Rethinking the Robot’s Role
  

Having seen a couple example graphs and breakdowns, it appears there is so much information correlated that it may be difficult for the average person interpret. Gupta assures me that Socrato’s technology currently has the power to break correlations down into simple study suggestions, but he believes that this is the role of the human teacher. Socrato is meant help professors and tutors, not replace them.

You might think of Socrato as the Google Analytics of education, and just as Google doesn’t tell you how to manage your website, Socrato doesn’t tell you how to teach your students. Thus, maintaining a human connection during education is still a vital part of the test prep process.

Also included in Socrato’s technology is the ability to create practice exams and share them with others, so Socrato isn’t ignoring the human element inherent in crowd sourcing either.

• Demystifying Preparation
  

Above all else, Socrato has the potential to strip standardized tests of their mysterious, intimidating power, and turn them into more helpful learning tools. It also helps students glean more from each practice test they take. These are services I know I would have appreciated while stressing about the SATs.

Think Socrato has potential? Notice any flaws? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

Send instant gifts from your computer with KangoGift!

Desperate for a last minute gift idea? Here’s a solution that takes about two minutes and works through text messaging:

KangoGift lets you text message gift vouchers to friends, family and anyone else whose digits you might have. Send a voucher for a cookie at a local café. The next time the recipient is there they can just show the text message and nab a free snack!

KangoGift was founded by Todd Horton and is based in Cambridge. Rising with the new trend of “mobile gifting,” KangoGift launched early this past October. Rather than intangible online gifts, KangoGift operates under the premise that mobile gifting should provide an actual, physical reward to the recipient. They’re providing you with an easy but fun way to give a friend a quick pick-me-up. As Horton put it during a recent phone interview, the goal is “to make it as frictionless as possible to send fun gifts to people from cool places.”

Try it by sending a FREE virtual gift!

Bought online through the KangoGift website, gifts are chosen and then sent to a recipient’s cell number. Consumers get to give and receive gifts, and the establishments providing the gifts get guaranteed customers who show up to flash their text vouchers. You can also send virtual gifts like the ones you see on Facebook, but I’d rather get a real cupcake than a picture of one.

As Todd explained, “we tend to focus on the Harvard community right now,” but affiliated businesses are also located in Boston and Brookline. Businesses chosen have a loyal fan base, and are ones that Todd thinks are “places that people can get really excited about.” Right now the real gifts — available from retailers like Berry Line, Melt and Finalé — include flowers, appetizers, sweets, and handmade bath soaps.

Given the choices, they seem to be catering more to the female demographic at this point, but guys would be foolish to ignore KangoGift. For the romance-inept boyfriend, a KangoGift could earn some brownie points, or might be enough to save you from some serious time in the doghouse.

Plus, since you’re buying a guaranteed visit from a friend, many of the merchants involved are offering discounts on KangoGifts. Their partner list is expanding, too, so be sure to check back later if the stuff available isn’t what you’re looking for.

Now that text messaging is a common means of communication, I think a service like KangoGift could really thrive among the younger generations. Already Todd has found that “people have embraced [KangoGift] as something they are willing to try.”

For now, its greatest weakness is that the available partner list is short, but keep in mind that the platform has only been live for two months and KangoGift is looking to expand. Widgets and phone apps are planned for the future and would make mobile gift giving even easier.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a friend in the Cambridge area who likes flowers, soap, or café cuisine, KangoGift is a great way to pull out a last minute Holiday winner.

Let us know your thoughts! If you’ve tried KangoGift, please take a second to share your experience in the comments.

A deal a day, the Boston way

BuyWithMe.com is a deal-a-day site for the local Boston marketplace. Much like Woot.com, it provides a single awesome deal every day. Unlike the more traditional approach to online retail, BuyWithMe makes no effort to have exactly what you’re looking for. Instead, they’re getting consumers to try local merchants by offering them a single deal they absolutely cannot refuse.

Locals have taken to the concept quickly, and although it’s only be live since May, the site saved Boston consumers over $1 million this year, according to BuyWithMe CEO Josh Elwell.

I spoke with the 27-year-old CEO, and Elwell says the early success of his company has been all about finding good deals, guaranteeing customers for the merchants providing the deals, and supplying users with good content so they know what they’re getting.

But for those of you who are now day-dreaming about hitting a sweet spot niche in the long tail of some local consumer base, the rest of Elwell’s story may be a wake-up call.

While they’ve been fruitful, the last seven months haven’t been easy for Elwell’s team, which is based in Wellesley, Mass.

“A lot of others have tried this and failed,” says Elwell. “The common underestimation that people have is, ‘Oh, I could get users. Who wouldn’t want 50 percent off? Oh, I could get merchants. Who wouldn’t want to be on a website with tons of users?’ Well, it’s a chicken-or-the-egg problem.

“You don’t get one without the other. You basically have to get them at the same time.”

From scratch, the BuyWithMe staff was tasked with convincing merchants to pay for promotion on a website they had never heard of. To do this, they had to offer an easy way to guarantee that merchants get what they pay for.

Deals have been (overtly) struck like this: A merchant agrees to a group-rate discount exclusive to the site. Users pay for that discount up front, so the merchant is guaranteed X number of new customers for the cost of the advertising and the discount. Here’s the safety valve guarantee: If fewer than X users buy in on the group deal, all bets are off — nobody’s credit card gets charged, and the merchant has lost nothing in offering the deal.

After a deal is in place, the obvious challenge is getting users to buy in on the deal being offered.

“From the user’s standpoint, it’s all about the content,” says Elwell. “It’s ‘How good are those deals?’ because that’s going to determine how many people visit the site, how many people sign up, and how many of our current users actually open their [daily] emails. The better the deal is, the better it’s presented, the better the photo looks — every little aspect of it can drive a much higher conversion of users into purchasers.

“We also don’t want to over-saturate our deals with all restaurants, or all spas. We like to have a variety, because that’s what makes it interesting. Even if you’re opening an Email thinking, ‘Oh I don’t want that,’ you might still say, ‘But that was kind of cool of them to put up today.’”

According to Elwell, his staff has perfected the process by being extremely focused on customer service.

Just like a local shop owner (or community blogger), everyone BuyWithMe communicates with is a potentially vital contact. This kind of work has serious value to everyone involved.

It’s also what piqued the interest of Boston.com in October, prompting a partnership that made BuyWithMe’s deal of the day Boston’s deal of the day.

“We formed that partnership because, like we did, [Boston.com] realized how much potential the concept had. But they didn’t want to deal with all the backend issues: customer service, paying the merchants, programming the site and managing the client relationship,” says Elwell of the deal with one of Boston’s most-visited websites.

As a result of the partnership and a concerted effort to brand the project by everyone involved, what Elwell has now is an excited user-base and a local advertising method that promises merchants get what they pay for. He also has spin-offs in San Diego and Washington D.C.

BuyWithMe’s users are people wanting to do or buy cool things in Boston. It’s merchants aren’t over-exposed by the process like they could be with coupons. Plus, they can maintain a high-end profile, because they’re not discounters, they’re just offering a discount. And users aren’t threatened, because if the deal doesn’t interest them today, all they’ve lost is the few seconds it takes to visit the site or open the email notification.

Sounds like a good deal to me. I wonder what they’ll have tomorrow?

MyBrainshark let's you add audio to PowerPoint and share online.

Brainshark is a company that has been successfully providing multi-media presentation services for the last ten years. In fact, they have become “the leader in on-demand multi-media presentation” and have some powerful technology to offer. Maybe you’ve heard of them, but if you haven’t, it might be because they cater exclusively to business enterprises – a so called “best kept secret” of large companies. That is until this past September, when Brainshark let the secret out by launching MyBrainshark, a free, easy, web video production service. To get my jaws around the concept, I talked to Business Development Director, Jay Wilder and got an inside scoop

Brainshark vs. MyBrainshark
Both Brainshark and MyBrainshark allow users to upload content (presentations, slideshows, etc.), add narration, and have it hosted online, available on-demand. So if MyBrainshark lets you utilize the same technology that enterprises pay big bucks for, then why is it free?

Essentially, the people at Brainshark want to get their technology to the people on a simple, easy-to-use platform. Don’t get me wrong, MyBrainshark isn’t just a free version of Brainshark. The “My” version lacks features such as high detail tracking, multiple users (only one user per “My” account), and private hosting.

These features are great, and allow companies to create email campaigns, webinars and training videos which are all viewer-trackable to let you know how your media is resonating. That being said, Jay assured me that MyBrainshark is hardly an attempt to upgrade or draw new Brainshark customers. After all, Brainshark already has a strong customer base of over 1,000 subscribers, and a paid subscription may not even be financially sound for the average person signing up for a MyBrainshark account.

Instead, the motivation is to share the technology, and create a community for business-related multi-media. As Jay puts it, MyBrainshark is “a democratic approach to rich media.” That sounds pretty cool to me.

The YouTube of Business
By letting anyone sign up and start uploading and creating content for free, MyBrainshark becomes a kind of “YouTube for business,” to use Jay’s term, and it definitely has a YouTube feel as you navigate the site.

Like YouTube, there is a display of multiple presentations created by different users, the difference being that the vast majority of the media is geared toward a business environment. Also like YouTube, the interface is very user-friendly. Users simply upload a powerpoint, for example, and dial a special phone number to add narration to the video via cell phone. The webpage actually responds to your keypad, showing you each slide as you move around the presentation and add personal narration on the phone.

In addition to their online media hosting, MyBrainshark has created marketplace environment where experienced media creators called “learning providers” can create a profile and put media presentations up for sale.

Defeating the Shark Stigma
With so many helpful tools to display business-related content, it’s safe to say MyBrainshark is sure to make a big splash within the business community. There are already around 1,500 MyBrainshark users and Jay says they are growing steadily. And, frankly, I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Their endlessly useful service and generous approach to multi-media technology makes them a shark any business-minded person should be happy to share the water with.