Earlier this month, thousands of technology professionals, digital marketers and venture capitalists descended on San Francisco for TechCrunch50. The event, which began in 2007 as a demonstration forum for 40 leading startups, has grown to include 50 companies and a slew of top-shelf internet partners -- ranging from Google to Microsoft and Yahoo -- as well as a who's who of the venture capital community.
But at the heart of the three-day event are the startups themselves, each of which had a brief moment to show the world their stuff.
So what worked according to plan and which of today's emerging technologies will be tomorrow's leaders? We caught up with TC50 co-organizer Jason Calacanis to find out.
A former tech journalist (Silicon Alley Reporter), startup veteran (Weblogs) and big media survivor (AOL), Calacanis has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of life and business in the dot-com world. Calacanis, who returned to his startup roots by founding the human-powered search engine Mahalo, gave us the rundown on this year's emerging technology scene, and explains what it all means for the future of interactive marketing.
iMedia: TC50 showcased a handful of startups specifically created to provide digital advertising solutions. Did you see anything that really impressed you?
Jason Calacanis: Burt had a fascinating approach to making the production of ad copy more dynamic -- a Photoshop for copy editors, if you will.
AdgregateMarkets has a clever approach to making email marketing targeted and more effective. It's sort of Google AdSense for email based on your profile and reading habits. Fascinating stuff.
Finally, AdRocket is tackling commerce in the banner, something I've seen before but never executed so well.
iMedia: TC50 is the place for startups to show their stuff, but not all of them are ready for primetime. Which companies out there are ones that marketers should be looking at now?
Jason Calacanis: Like the Sundance Film Festival we look for projects and producers that are early in their careers in many cases (but not all). As such some of the projects are, in fact, "rough cuts." Tonchidot is very rough, but marketers need to stop everything they're doing and watch their video because the future typically arrives faster than we expect.
Folks who are ready to engage with marketers now include Ashton Kutcher's very refined BlahGirls, which features deep product integration with Vitamin Water currently. If I was in the financial services space, I would buy out 100 percent of iCharts, Emerginvest and Stockmoods inventory before it hits the market. Each of these sites are going to make a big impact in the finance sector we predict.
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