Forrst is a community for developers and designers. Forrst is all about sharing work and inspiration, getting valuable and constructive feedback, and ultimately getting better at your craft. Sharing on Forrst is done through posting four kinds of posts: questions, snaps, code, and links. Share anything you find interesting to other developers and designers, or post works in progress you need feedback on.
Public posts allow you to share content with friends via the post’s short URL. Your friends don’t need to have a Forrst account to view your post; just blog, tweet, HackerNews, or share the URL and you’re done.
Apsalar is a mobile analytics platform that measures end-user behavior. With data-driven metrics, app developers and publishers can profitably grow their user-base, deliver a quality user experience and ultimately generate more revenue.
ApSalar’s ApBuzz is a social sharing tool that integrates Facebook and Twitter buttons into your app. Get your app discovered, maximize downloads and improve brand awareness through social sharing. As simple as two lines of code, ApBuzz can have your app spreading through the social sphere in minutes.
Simply download the Apsalar SDK and with one simple API, your users can share your apps with their friends and followers on the most popular social networking sites – all for free!
BUMP.com is a new start-up internet company headquartered in San Diego, CA that aims to help connect drivers on the road through a new type of communication platform which BUMP calls “license plate messaging.”
Essentially, BUMP has created an email address for every car on the road by combining the state and license plate number. For example, a message can be sent to California plate ABC123 by emailing CA.ABC123@bump.com.
So why would anyone ever want to send an email to a car?
Perhaps a car has blocked you in. Or perhaps an annoying car alarm is going off outside your window. Or perhaps you simply want to introduce yourself. BUMP demonstrates a variety of use cases for their new product in their introduction video below:
Drivers can choose to opt into the system by “claiming their plate” on the BUMP.com website, which lets them control how they want to send or receive “BUMPs”, who can contact them, what type of messages they will accept and even what type of emergency notifications they want to receive. Users can also determine if they want their BUMP accounts to be linked with their other social network applications such as Facebook and Twitter.
BUMP’s new communication platform is not just for drivers. Businesses can also take advantage of this new means of communication. Using Auto License Plate Recognition technology, or ALPR, BUMP allows businesses to communicate on the platform too. Imagine a security camera in a drive-thru at a fast food restaurant that can scan your license plate and automatically know what you ordered in your past visits. This is very valuable information to the restaurant.
This is a great concept, I am surprise that OnStar is not doing this.
CarWoo! is an online new-car buying service and marketplace. Buyers come to CarWoo!, state which car they are looking for and CarWoo!’s network of over 3000 dealers compete to sell the buyer the car.
Technically the product is an anonymous reverse-auction. The buyer’s personal information (name, phone number, email) are kept private until the buyer selects which vehicle and dealer they want to buy the car from. This helps the consumer avoid spam emails and unwanted phone calls that are common when people buy new cars using “Request a Quote” processes many other online sites use.
Here’s how it works
First, you tell us what kind of car you want. Then, we go out and contact 15 dealerships and get them to start giving you offers. As the offers come in (most buyers usually get 3-4 within 24 hours) we present them to you in a standardized, easy-to-understand format. Then you give the dealers feedback by filling out a simple form (it only takes 10 seconds). The dealers get this feedback and use it to give you better offers. Since they’re all competing against each other, the price keeps getting driven down.
Once you’ve received an offer you really like, you accept it, at which point we connect you with the dealer. Then all that’s left to do is go to the dealership, present your CarWoo! Claim Certificate, sign some paperwork, and drive off in your brand new car, woo!
The Price for CarWoo’s service
CarWoo! offers two services. The Basic plan costs $0.00, but usually you get two to three dealers and you have to do everything on your own. The Plus plan (our most popular plan) costs a one-time fee of $49.00. The Plus plan gives you three to five dealers and you are guaranteed to get the best price. With both plans you will get no spam or dinner time phone calls from dealers.
At this time CarWoo! is only available in the United States. (bummer…)
Topicmarks is a web service that creates smart, interactive synopses from electronic documents in minutes.
It uses advanced natural-language processing technology to understand the true meaning of your text, summarize it for you and retain all its facts forever. Upload multiple texts and Topicmarks becomes your knowledge base: finding links between texts, grouping texts around topics, and containing all the facts from all documents you ever read. Understand the essence and retain every single fact – without reading anything yourself. (Slick!)
Topicmarks works by cutting up the full text into sentences, attaching meaning like synonyms and antonyms to each word in the sentence, and then by identifying triplets (typically between subject, verb and object) that are the basic facts expressed in the text.
Currently, Topicmarks supports the following file types:
Adobe Acrobat PDF (.pdf)
Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
OpenOffice ODF text (.odt)
Hypertext Markup Language (.htm, .html)
Plain text (.txt)
You can get a text into Topicmarks in four ways:
Uploading a file from your hard drive
Copy-pasting text directly from an open document into Topicmarks
Letting Topicmarks download a document from a URL you give it
Sending a file to Topicmarks by email (check the next question for details)
Geosurf is a business intelligence tool that enable you to view detail information on Ad and Web Content from more than 70 countries. This type of information is super useful when you want to accomplish the following:
Reveal the local perspective and tap into a new competitive advantage. Increase team productivity by viewing geo targeted ads and web content in multiple geos. See how targeted banners, social media, applications and video content is displayed in countries important to you.
Optimize your tactics and strategies by seeing who is bidding on your traffic in high value countries. Literally interact and see the campaign and conversion funnel of your competitors.
Improve your eCPM margins by validating proper deployment of geo targeted content and ads. Confirm your campaign and geo targeted ad tags are deployed correctly.
Ensure compliance across your network by watching partnership activity in any geo. Confirm your partners are delivering value while being compliant with your policies.
BraveNewTalent is a social recruiting solution that connects true talent to employers. By focusing on what gives most value for employers and candidates, which is building talent communities, BraveNewTalent has brought the idea of social recruitment to a whole different level, reinventing its very concept.
BraveNewTalent’s flagship product, Talent Words™, drives targeted Generation Y candidates to employers’ profile pages from sources such as Facebook, Twitter, partner websites, societies, and more.
Employers have access to the professional profiles of talent who are interested in working for them, being able to engage, educate, segment, invite for events and ultimately recruit from their talent pool.
Chango has built a solution specifically with the goal of making display advertising simple and effective for Search Marketers.
How does it work?
Search engine marketers target a user by matching keywords against searches being performed. However, once a user has left Google you cannot continue to target them, even if you know they are interested in your product or service.
Chango captures the recent search activity of hundreds of millions of users and anonymously cookies these users. It re-target display ads to users if they match a specific campaign keyword.
Pagemodo’s first release is the Pagebuilder, which is a deceptively easy-to-use online tool with which businesses and Facebook Page owners with ease can use to custom design and build their own Facebook pages, without any technical or graphics skills and instantly publish it to Facebook
Pagebuilder is a 100% free service and it’s versatility allows users to add pictures, embed videos, change the colors, type in a text, and more. The tool’s ready-made templates make it a cinch to install on your Facebook page.
Foodily offers a new way to search for recipes so you can easily browse through the broadest selection of recipes online — from big name chefs to up and coming bloggers.
Search results display in a beautiful side-by-side comparison view of recipes that you can flip through like a magazine. You can pick your favorites and let your friends see what you like. Collect recipes into a menu, then share tips and opinions. Create a Facebook event when you make a menu and invite friends to share the meal. Foodily goes beyond sharing or saving recipes by including your friends in those everyday conversations about what to cook and eat.
Well, here we are. More than four years after launching, Switched and DownloadSquad are unfortunately being closed. I've been thrilled to work at these two sites that have expanded tech coverage beyond the usual gadgets and social networks to cooking, culture, design, art and more. It's been humbling to work with these incredibly dedicated and tale […]
Angry Birds is one franchise that sure gives new meaning to the word cross-platform. Angry Birds Rio, the latest installment in the bird-slinging series from Rovio Mobile, is now available in Nokia's Ovi Store, ready to fly to your Symbian device. Angry Birds Rio has so far been spotted on iOS, Android, and webOS. As with the versions for all the other […]
Forrst is a community for developers and designers. Forrst is all about sharing work and inspiration, getting valuable and constructive feedback, and ultimately getting better at your craft. Sharing on Forrst is done through posting four kinds of posts: questions, snaps, code, and links. Share anything you find interesting to other developers and designers, or post works in progress you need feedback on.
Apsalar
CarWoo
Chango
Pagemodo
Foodily
