When Beyoncé needed an app, she turned to Seattle mobile app developer Treemo Labs to get the job done. The Grammy-winning performer worked with Seattle mobile app developer Treemo Labs to create the “Beyoncé: Live At Roseland” app, which offers music, concert footage, and photographs from on-stage and backstage during Beyoncé's performances at New York's famed Roseland Ballroom in August. The app is a seen as an alternative distribution model for long-form content such as concerts – content that was previously only available on DVD. It also marks an alternative way for recording artists like Beyoncé to connect with her fans beyond CD sales or live performances during a time of turmoil in the music industry brought on by advances in digital music. “Offering all of these materials in an App represents an industry first and demonstrates again why Beyoncé is a music and entertainment industry visionary,” said Brent Brookler, CEO of Treemo Labs. “We’re extremely fortunate to have been able to work with her and her team on this project.” The iPhone and iPad app features the full Roseland concert and a photo gallery containing over 25 pictures with pinch and zoom capabilities. With the app, fans also can download the bonus video content – “Behind The Stage” from Roseland and “Behind The Camera” from Beyoncé’s music videos. Fans can also share photos and connect with friends using social media or email. Treemo was launched in 2005 and is led by Brookler, the co-founder and former president of games and entertainment for mobile gaming startup Mobliss. The startup has helped a number of large media organizations go mobile, developing apps for CBS, CNet and others. Read More
Washington State Department of Transportation image Dreading the upcoming tolls to cross the State Route 520 bridge? One startup has a solution for that. SeaBalt Solutions is releasing the Toll Avoider app in preparation for tolls on the 520 bridge, set to begin on Thursday. A user can enter his or her location into the app, and three routes will be offered, including the 520 bridge. For some, saving time by using the bridge outweighs the cost and hassle of finding another route. Peak tolls for drivers without a transponder can run as high as $5 per crossing. Traffic planners are expecting increased traffic on State Route 522 through Bothell, Kenmore and Lake City and the Interstate 90 bridge, so those options may become less attractive. The Seattle Times is reporting that tolls will be in place for at least 40 years. The company also built Park Place, an app that uses GPS to find parking lots and garages nearby. Park Place differs from other apps in that it includes hours, rates and photos of all garages and lots. SeaBalt was founded by Jesse Leikin and Jordan Phillipson in Baltimore. Phillipson moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington, and Leikin followed. The company is now based in North Seattle and does contract app development in addition to Toll Avoider and Park Place. Toll Avoider is available through the iTunes App Store. The state has launched its Good to Go campaign to get motorists to buy passes to tap into the state’s electronic tolling system. Read More
Pirq, the new Seattle startup from former "Apprentice" star James Sun, has launched its daily deals app for the iPhone. Pirq says it is taking a "2.0" approach to daily deals by using Microsoft Tag to help consumers find nearby deals. Rather than buying a deal through Groupon that they might never use, consumers can find real-time deals (20-50 percent off) that they can use immediately. It's also a boon to retailers who can offer deals in off-peak hours, said Sun. The service is live in Seattle and San Francisco and will expand to other cities soon.Check out our recent profile on the company to get more details on how Pirq works. Mobile broadband provide Clearwire plans to add LTE technology to its 4G network, a move that could help the struggling company make further inroads into the mobile ecosystem. Clearwire said it will implement the new technology in densely populated, urban areas of Clearwire's existing 4G market. The upgrade could give customers download speeds of over 100 Mbps. One caveat: the plan is subject to additional funding. Will Clearwire turn to Sprint -- its majority shareholder -- for additional funding? In April, Sprint agreed to invest $1 billion in the Kirkland-based company. Read More
Pai's uses Twitter and Facebook to connect with customers. Now that the mayor and City Council have given the green light to more mobile food vending on the streets of Seattle, how will these chuck wagons draw in diners? How about rewards and social media? The website Mashable says that food trucks are becoming increasingly savvy with social media. Some are running campaigns to support particular efforts, deals or events. Mashable gives a breakdown of five innovative social media campaigns. No. 1 is the DoubleTree CAREavan, a cookie-mobile that is on a 10,000-mile journey across the U.S. giving away chocolate chip cookies to workers. The DoubleTree Hilton is using social media, including Facebook and Foursquare to get the word out. Taking orders from Pai's food truck BBQ truck Mexicue, which has trucks in LA, NYC and Philadelphia, uses a Facebook app to let customers bet on the best recipes. It will be interesting to see what new social media campaigns are launched in Seattle. Some food trucks are already in the game. Pai's, which serves Thai Hawaiian plate lunches from a food truck in Seattle, is on Twitter and Facebook. The popular food truck frequently sets up shop around Seattle, including at Starbucks Center in the SoDo district. And yes, there is an app for that. Food Trucker has an iPhone app on iTunes tracking Food trucks, carts, and stands in several cities, including Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle. Read More
Want to analyze one of your Twitter followers without the help of a trained professional? MoaLab LLC, a Redmond startup founded in 2010, has just the ticket. Its newest product Tweet X-Ray -- approved by Apple just yesterday -- is an app that lets you know what your tweets really say about you. We caught up with founder Mohammad Al-Abdullah, a former Microsoft software engineer, in the latest installment of Startup of the Week. What is your elevator pitch? Tweet X-Ray will provide unique and valuable insights based on our proprietary algorithm that analyzes tweets and will change the way people choose with whom to interact and how. We came up with the idea... With a mobile device, (we wanted to) use publicly available data, e.g. Tweets, to draw a vivid picture of a person’s emotional state, and interests. A good example is someone giving you their business card with a Twitter handle on it. You can use Tweet X-Ray to analyze that person’s tweets and see if they are happy, sad, angry, or calm. In addition to this, you’ll see if they talk mostly about work, music, money, sports, food, or are self centered or not, among other things. Tweet X-Ray would also alarm you if some of the tweets may have contained insults or foul language. Based on the analysis, you may change how to approach that person and what topics to talk about. The word that describes our company culture is... Honey Badger and inspired by the likes of Richard Bronson, Richard Feynman, and Ferdinand Porsche. Some highlights: We take big chances and are not afraid of failing. We believe people should not be afraid to ask questions for the fear of looking stupid. Try and try, then try some more. The biggest challenge we face is... Getting Read More
This week on the TechFlash Podcast, we talk about Amazon.com replacing Microsoft as the Seattle region's economic growth engine; discuss Facebook's acquisition of a Seattle startup; delve into LinkedIn's IPO filing; and get the inside scoop on the CubeDuel co-worker rating service from special guest, co-founder Tony Wright. Listen above or subscribe to the podcast using this RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/techflashpodcast), or via iTunes or Zune. Access the archive to hear full episodes of the podcast, and continue reading for links related to this week's episode. Here's the MP3 file. Read More
Here's the latest look at some of the Form D filings from Washington companies submitted to the SEC in recent weeks. In most cases, these are links to the raw filings, and as the SEC notes it has not been determined if they are accurate or complete. Nonetheless, there are some interesting companies in this latest batch as you'll see below. Antimicrobial Technologies Group of Bellevue raised $1 million of a $2 million round. The company says it is working on technologies that provide infection control and odor protection for uses in plastics, paints and apparel. WebTuner, a Kirkland startup led by former InfoSpace executive Bernee Strom, has raised $2.3 million of a $4 million round. We first wrote about the stealthy company last August, at which time executive Arthur Vaysman said more details would be coming later this year or early next year. Unsocial Inc., a Kirkland mobile app startup that helps people connect with business contacts at events and other locations, raised $50,000 of a $300,000 round. Listed as executives are Santosh Khare, K.V. Ramatathan, Kirin Modak and Justin Richardson. Founded in 2009, the Seattle company launched at DiscoveryBeat conference last month. VentureBeat reported earlier this month that former Vertel and Efficient Networks CEO Bruce Brown recently took over the CEO post at the mobile app maker. Valant Medical Systems has raised $285,000 of a $1 million round, according to a filing. The Seattle company, led by David Lischner, has developed a Web-based electronic medical record service specifically for psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Prometheus Energy, which has developed technologies to convert methane gases into liquid natural gas, has raised $2.5 million of a $7 million round. The Redmond company is now led by Ron Bertasi, who replaced founder Kirt Montague as CEO in October. Bertasi is the former Read More
Kima Labs, a Bay Area startup founded by two veterans of Seattle's technology scene, has developed its first mobile product, dubbed Barcode Hero. The social commerce app lets users scan barcodes to get information about products, catalog what they own, compile wish lists, make recommendations to friends and compare and connect to places to buy. The free app, available for the iPhone (iTunes link) embraces the current craze for social-networking achievements by naming people kings, queens, dukes and duchesses of particular product categories when they scan, share or recommend enough items. According to its website, Kima was started by Blake Scholl and Jason Crawford, who both worked previously at Amazon.com and Seattle mobile startup Pelago, the company behind Foursquare rival Whrrl. Scholl, the CEO, founded Amazon.com's Automated Advertising group prior to working as Pelago's product development director. Crawford, the CTO, founded Amazon.com’s Landing Page Optimization team before becoming Pelago's lead engineer for mobile software. I've been trying Barcode Hero this morning, and it's working smoothly so far, quickly scanning and cataloging items and tracking my progress toward achievements. It uses Facebook as its login mechanism but Kima vows in an FAQ not to spam your Facebook feed. The Barcode Hero site promises an Android version of the app soon. So what was the inspiration for the app? "Like most people, we’re shoppers ourselves — and we love trading recommendations with our friends," the FAQ says. "But we’ve been frustrated by the lack of quality, trusted information in most physical stores. So we created Barcode Hero to help you share the stuff you love and discover recommendations from people you trust — and to tap those recommendations anytime, anywhere — especially when you’re out shopping." No doubt the referrals to online shopping sites are key to the business model. Contacted earlier today, Read More
Apple's iPad hasn't even been out a week, so I'll grant you that it is a little early to be doing a deep analysis on who the winners and losers are in the app store. But I was interested to learn that two of the top 25 selling applications for the new touchscreen device -- at least as of this afternoon -- were developed by Seattle startups. PopCap Games currently ranks 14th in the paid apps category for its $9.99 game "Plants vs. Zombies HD." And not too far behind is BigOven, which ranks 24th with its app "170,000 Recipes and Grocery List." "It's pretty early to be touting stats/factoids," said PopCap's Garth Chouteau. "But you could certainly say that between the iPad launch and continuing success of the iPhone adaptation, (Plants vs. Zombies) is our hottest App Store/iTunes product of 2010 -- so far. Not bad considering Bejeweled 2/iPhone continues to be a top 20 seller perpetually." BigOven's Steve Murch also is enjoying the early success, noting that the company's $4.99 recipe app (soon to increase to $9.99) has been in the pole position in the lifestyle category every since launch. You can see it in action below: Among the other paid apps in the top 25 for the iPad are Pages (#1, $9.99); GoodReader for iPad (#2, 99 cents) Real Racing HD (#5, $9.99); Sketchbook Pro (#6, $7.99); Camera-A (#9, 99 cents), and we wrote about a competitor to that one from Seattle app developer Michael Burford earlier today); World Atlas HD (#11, $1.99); Flight Control HD (#13, $4.99); Time (#19, $4.99); Magic Piano (#20, $2.99) and Desktop Connect (#21, $11.99). Read More
One of the biggest criticisms we've heard about Apple's new iPad is the lack of a built-in camera. But even though Steve Jobs and crew may have left that crucial feature off the list this time around, an enterprising Seattle app developer is looking to fill the void. Michael Burford, who ironically had his Strip Poker apps removed from the App store two months ago during Apple's infamous porn purge, is back in action with a 99 cent app called "Camera for iPad." When the app is running on both the iPhone and the iPad simultaneously, it wirelessly connects the devices via Bluetooth. That allows photographers to use their iPhones to take photos with an iPad, which Burford describes in the product description as nothing short of magic. "Simply start Camera for iPad on both devices, and they'll find each other," explains Burford. "Your iPad shows what the iPhone's camera is seeing. Intuitive controls let you zoom with a pinch or rotate with a swipe. And just tap the button to take a high resolution photo that is saved onto your iPad." Burford, who operates the small development shop Headlight Software, isn't the only one to have figured this out and attack what could be an emerging (albeit short lived) market. Gizmodo on Tuesday featured mobile apps for the iPad and iPhone called Camera A and Camera B which does much the same thing. Burford tells us that the app could be used for setting up group photos or even as a baby monitor. "One of the biggest complaints about the iPad is that it doesn't have a camera...so we thought we'd figure a way to solve it until Apple (maybe) adds it in the iPad2 next year," he said. Read More
