e-mail and SharePoint for project management. Adapting to customer feedback and building relationships with corporate clients will be crucial.
RewardsForce
Founders: Jordan Greene, Jeremy Wemple, John Brunsfeld
Idea: Help casinos manage their loyalty rewards programs using mobile devices.
Tagline: Do you know who your loyal customers are?
Analysis: Casinos have a boatload of money, and they want more. So why not tap into that market and help casino owners (and eventually hotels and others) create and manage rewards clubs in an easy and secure way? If it pays off for a few big casinos, this company will be in business.
The Shared Web
Founders: Nicolae Rusan, Kareem Amin, Nav Patel
Idea: Change how people share, discover, and consume Web content by creating a destination site that recommends articles in a smarter way.
Tagline: Social curation plus algorithms is the next big thing.
Analysis: I didn’t immediately get this concept—probably a good sign. At first it seemed like just another social filter for online information. (It’s like a social, personalized Digg.) But there’s a deeper idea here, around understanding each person’s network and who the right audience is for a given piece of info. Initial focus on food, fashion, and technology will prove whether they’re on to something.
Giant Thinkwell
Founders: Kevin Leneway, Kyle Kesterson
Idea: A social gaming platform for games that involve raising “virtual celebrities.”
Analysis: This should be more fun than it looks, actually. But whether or not the celebrity-based games are a hit, the platform could be useful. And it’s an interesting strategy to form partnerships with the likes of John Stamos and MC Hammer to push the games into the mainstream.
