Pick 6: Hot New Startups Face Off at Web 2.0 Summit

I’m not sure if it’s happened, and please somebody ‘hip’ me to it, but I believe the ‘pepsi generation’ is the ‘2.0 generation’; has that scientifically been named?  Also, 2.0 generation seems to apply to older people too (ever have a teach ask you to be their facebook friend?)

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/153469/article.html?tk=nl_ptxblg

Mark Sullivan, PC World

Nov 7, 2008 12:43 am

 

http://www.everyscape.com/
The best way to understand what Everyscape is trying to do is think of Google Street View, then add the ability to virtually leave the street and explore the insides of the shops, restaurants and other businesses adjacent to it. The company actually goes out into the streets with its cameras and takes GPS-tagged pictures, including from inside the businesses.

 

www.goodguide.com

GoodGuide is founded on the idea that we know very little about the products we buy at the supermarket, beyond what the makers tell us with their marketing mumbo jumbo. So GoodGuide is an easy-to-use website where you can punch in a given product, and get back the chemical make-up of the product (got carcinogens?), the Green credibility of the company that makes it (is the manufacturing process eco-friendly?) and the social consciousness of the company that makes it (is the product made with child labor?).

www.predictify.com
A friend of mine hipped me to this site a few days ago, so I was pleased to see them in the Launch Pad competition here. Predictify is an online platform where users enter their best guesses on anything from who will be elected president, to what consumer confidence numbers will be in six months, to whether Brittney [sic] Spears will have another baby in 2009.  

 

www.qik.com
Up next was Qik. This startup helps people share live cell phone video quickly and simply. Application: a couple in India broadcasts live cell phone video at the Qik website so that Grandma in America can watch, and, conceivably, send back her own live cell phone video. I must say that the service looked really simple to use--it took the presenter all of two seconds to begin streaming video of the audience to the Qik website at the very start of the presentation.

 

www.sungevity.com
The last company to present was a bit of an oddity, although the VC panelists seemed to love it. Sungevity is a platform that helps you order solar panels for your home, then organizes the installation. The site uses a Google Earth-type satellite application to locate your house, so that it can suggest the best kind of solar panel for the climate you live in. You buy the panel with a credit card online, then Sungevity ships the hardware to you and arranges for a local technician to install it.