In the past, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) has been a place where startups launch and make a big splash. In 2007 and 2008, Twitter was the buzz. The last two years, both Gowalla and Foursquare grabbed people’s real-time check-in attention. This year at SXSW, the hottest trend was group texting and chat. Throw in…
Read MoreThis past month at the Consumer Electronic Show the future of TV was a main focus as I walked around the hundreds of flashing monitors. The buzzword was “SmartTV” as many televisions where connected to the Internet. TV’s seemed to not only be smarter but also more portable by leveraging a number of different screens…
Read MoreIt’s time for the annual sharing trends report for 2010 by AddThis. AddThis, by DC-area based startup ClearSpring, is one of the largest sharing offerings on the web. We reported earlier this year on how they go about designing for 1 billion users and last year we reported on the top 15 shared pages on the…
Read MoreThis year was a big one for the payments industry. Startups offered innovative solutions for business owners and consumers to handle ongoing payments woes. Here’s what will come in 2011: Mobile Payments Extravaganza- With new smartphones and the debut of the iPad this year, payments startups are jumping on the mobile bandwagon and will continue…
Read MoreWith 25 billion Tweets sent in 2010 over Twitter, they released a report today showing some of the latest trends. In analyzing all those Tweets they identified the year’s Top 10 Trends, as well as the leading Trends in eight categories: News Events, People, Movies, Television, Technology, World Cup, Sports and Hashtags.
Read MoreGoogle has produced a gadget showing top search terms for 2010. The look back includes views by region, topic, and popular category. Chatroulette took the top space for the fastest rising global search term, while iPad took the top spot in the US. Watch the video (above) for quick look back at 2010 in search.
Read MoreWith the largest e-commerce conference in the nation taking place in Chicago next week (June 8th through 11th) and e-commerce sales expected to account for 53 percent of all retail sales in 2014, according to Forrester Research we were excited to explore the latest trends in e-commerce with Alex Schmelkin. Alex is the co–founder and…
Read MoreIs it a revolution in location based social media, or the latest fad destined to fizzle out? Any seasoned Foursquare user is familiar with the ebb and flow in interest with the application’s use. After initially registering for an account, the excitement that comes along with each additional check-in can only fully be understood by a…
Read MoreIn an O’Reilly Radar report, mobile evangelist Jason Grigsby (@grigs) captures two mobile trends that might be surprising. Much unlike the desktop market, which has long been dominated by Windows with MacOS running a distant second, mobile devices are seeing increased fragmentation in operating systems. At the same time, web standards are bringing mobile web…
Read MoreEdison Research and Arbitron released study today titled Twitter Usage in America 2010, that shares some interesting data about usage of social networking site like Facebook and Twitter. The study presents three years of tracking data from a nationally representative telephone survey (via landline and mobile phone) of 1,753 Americans, and was conducted in February…
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was contributed by longtime Chicago TECH cocktailer David Dalka. You can follow him on Twitter at @dalka. If you are in the Chicagoland area you might want to head up to Milwaukee to the one-day seminar, Think Tank Live! Digital Marketing & Social Media Summit. The event, on Tuesday, February 23,…
Read MoreLast week, Google boldly released the Google-branded NexusOne phone (manufactured by HTC), the closest device to date to compete with the iPhone in terms of features and flexibility. By now, critics and users have discussed the phone on its merits and by how its release changes the smartphone landscape. For those looking to enter the…
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was written by Shashi Bellamkonda. A prolific Twitterer, blogger, and product innovator, Shashi speaks seven languages and ardently works to turn his hobbies into his profession. He blogs at: blog.networksolutions.com and shashi.name. You can follow him on Twitter at: @shashib. At this time of the year there is a flurry of…
Read MoreOne of the big trends that has been on the rise since I found myself in the middle of the startup scene is coworking spaces. I just got back from the Emerging Technology Center for an event (post on the way for that) which is a terrific space that is shared by some of the up and…
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Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
We are excited to announce the participating startups for Tech Cocktail's South by Southwest (SXSW) event: #Startuplife Celebration presented by .CO. It was one of... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More