iTaggit.com, the leading online resource for valuing and organizing household items and collectibles, launched its “ValueRange It” tool in beta today. The new tool is designed to give users a value range for any item, providing them with data to make smart decisions on what to do with their belongings - be it sell, insure, donate, or simply track over time.

For iTaggit users looking to sell, the website offers time savings and convenience through our unique broadcasting services which allow “for sale” items to be syndicated when and where the user chooses. This means a single item that is added to the site with its description and, if available, pictures or video, can be placed into multiple online marketplaces and social networks, including Craigslist, eBay, Facebook and Oodle.

The highly robust iTaggit site caters to most anyone who owns things – from homeowners to estate planners and from comic book collectors to seasoned antiques aficionados – quickly giving them the latest market prices, and the ease to sell their items any time they are ready.

Here’s how it works:

• The “ValueRange It” tool uses proprietary technology and recent price data on millions of items to determine an accurate value range. Users can refine their ValueRange It results for a completely customized value range for their specific item.
• The “Sell It” function empowers members to post their items once on iTaggit and then broadcast them to multiple online marketplaces and social networks, as frequently as desired.

“Our newly launched ValueRange It tool functions much like an online ‘Blue Book’ for users interested in understanding the value of something in order to sell, research or donate an item,” explains Lauranne Jarrett, iTaggit CEO. “In fact, we aim to be the premiere, trusted location for finding the value of countless, disparate items. So, if you’re wondering about the price of that antique vase or the Dually Double Baby Jogger that’s gathering dust in your garage, iTaggit is the place for you.”

Members can get more return from their items and collectibles by using the following iTaggit functions:

* Quickly and easily add items in 4 ways, including via a free iPhone application, also named ValueRange It, available at the iTunes store
* Store item descriptions, images, receipts, documents, notes and audio/video links
* Link to other site profiles and marketplaces for increased visibility and sales promotion

iTaggit strives to be the ultimate resource to find value and act smart. To this end, we regularly develop, enhance and release new features with an end goal of being the premier site for valuing, selling, organizing, showcasing, and protecting items and collections.

I’ve seen some Twitter traffic recently from people who have tried to look back and see what their very first tweet was. To their surprise, they couldn’t find it! It makes sense really, Twitter has so many messages that it would be really hard to keep them all forever. Luckily, a local Austin company will take care of that problem for you for free.

BackupMyTweets will backup all your tweets so you can retrieve them whenever you need. You don’t even have to give them your Twitter password! It seems to work by just signing up for an account, and then letting BackupMyTweets follow your Twitter feed.

If you want to sign up, or find out more information you can check out the website at www.backupmytweets.com, and follow them on Twitter @backupmytweets.

If you find the concept interesting, they also have offerings to backup your email, your blog, and your online photos.

It’s hard to believe that it’s time to start thinking about SXSW 2010! Make sure to nominate a panel by Friday, July 10th!

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/

Today’s Q&A Wednesday is with Melissa Simpler, CEO of Affinegy.

Give us the elevator pitch for Affinegy. How long has the company been around?

Affinegy makes software that removes networking complexity for consumers who wish to lead a converged Digital Lifestyle, and enables service providers to maximize revenues and profitability in the Digital Home. Our solutions deliver the “it just works” consumer experience that enables mass market adoption of video, data and voice services delivered through IP networks, uniquely spanning existing, new retail and custom networking equipment. Market-leading service providers across North America and the UK, including Charter, Cox, Clearwire, Time Warner Cable, Virgin Media, are deploying Affinegy solutions as the foundation of their Digital Home services.

Affinegy was founded March 2003 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Growing and profitable is not exactly normal in today’s economy. To what do you attribute your success?

First, we are benefiting from the pervasive use and increasing utility of the Internet. A June 2009 study from Pew Research Center found that consumers are twice as likely to have cut cell phone or cable TV service in place of cancelling their broadband, and further that consumers resort to reduced travel and eating out expenditures before cutting Internet service.

Second, our current customers – broadband service providers – are facing new competition from an inflection in the Internet being increasingly used to distribute and stream video content. Over the top competition from players like Hulu and Netflix is fierce and several other eco players like Boxee and Sezmi are providing content and service solutions that enable the consumer to cut the cord from cable and DSL.

Broadband service providers need to step up to deliver more than “the pipe”. They are realizing this and taking action. Their core asset – the IP data network – is what serves up the Internet. They own the branded content. They’re in position to assert their brand as “trusted advisor” of the consumer’s growing digital lifestyle, and are embracing this market opportunity with our solution.

It’s great to see a woman tech CEO. What is your take on how to encourage more women in tech, especially entrepreneurs?

Thank you. I frequently refer to myself as the “accidental entrepreneur” as I had my career sights set on executive management in the Fortune 500 ranks. I caught the broadband bug while on intrapreneurial assignment with Motorola. That business unit was wound down in the post 2001 bubble, and I had the opportunity to start something new on the outside. I took that opportunity and never looked back.

I believe early exposure to the fun and wonder of science and math is key to encouraging more people to enter engineering and technical fields. It’s not just women that are lacking. The percentage of U.S. citizens pursuing technical degrees has decreased and continues to shrink. Mad Science camps, magnet education at Austin’s Kealing and LBJ Science Academy, Take Your Child to Work Day, Girlstart, Austin Women in Technology, and traditional mentoring by women like me to members of the community is key.

Your husband is also an entrepreneur, and founder of tech company Simpler-Webb. That has to make for an interesting home life. How do you juggle that?

Interesting indeed. Two founder entrepreneurs, two boys, no nanny …but a lot of shared understanding and empathy. We also have family that we’re close to in and near Austin.

Simpler-Webb was founded 1993; Affinegy in 2003. I learned a lot from Jeff’s early business experiences, and we compare and share our experiences with each other as our careers and businesses evolve. It’s busy, but great! I don’t know life any other way.

What is the number one constraint to your growth in the rest of 2009 and beyond?

The classic challenge businesses face that are playing in explosive growth market segments: staying focused during periods of rapid growth; growing the team with “fit to culture” and “fit to skill” front and center; and picking the right projects given the inevitable constraint of having limited resources (that most of us face).

What does the future hold for Affinegy? What can we expect to see from the company in the coming months?

We’re aiming to establish Affinegy as the “digital glue” for the mass market digital lifestyle on a global scale. It’s not just about setting up and managing computers, routers, and printers. It’s about making it all plug-and-play – game consoles, smart phones, media centers, webcams, and more. And it’s about extending the Internet and digital communications experience beyond the boundary of the home while making that home and its content and devices available anytime, anywhere.

Today’s guest blogger is Corey Blahuta, the managing director for the Austin office of vcfo. The firm specializes in operational finance and accounting, HR Solutions and recruiting services for companies of all sizes. He can be reached at 512-345-9441.

I had an unusual experience the other day that I thought other entrepreneurs would find interesting and possibly instructive. I received an e-mail from a successful business owner and entrepreneur looking for some advice on software to help develop a business plan. I responded that Word, Excel and PowerPoint are what most vcfo clients commonly use when developing business plans for their ventures. But now I was curious so I also asked some questions about the new venture and suggested that factors such as the overall business model and the type of funding sources they were targeting might influence the complexity of the business plan. This is where the interesting part comes in. This individual responded that they were not actually looking to raise any money. They were simply developing a plan for a new self funded venture but wanted to go through the process and discipline of developing a business plan.

At first I was a little surprised, then a little embarrassed, and finally happy to have been part of this exchange. The surprised part comes from having met very few individuals over the years that were actively developing business plans who were not 100% solely focused on raising some type of debt or equity financing.

The embarrassment comes from having fallen into the trap of assuming every entrepreneur developing a plan is looking to raise money. I have been working with some entrepreneur education groups here in Austin and there are a couple of things I consistently tell them when the discussion turns to business plans in general and financial projections specifically, they need to be as realistic as possible but show the entrepreneur knows how he is going to execute the business to make money, and they need to be developed as a living document for the operation of the company. This second point seems to be the hardest for many entrepreneurs to grasp as they are many times so focused on checking the box for some due diligence process, or making the numbers say what they think potential investors needs them to say. The business plan and projections need to be developed by the entrepreneur for the entrepreneur, period. The fact you have a comprehensive plan and it is in a form that works for potential investors simply shows you are serious about your idea and can articulate in words and numbers how you plan to make money from your new venture.

So, I was happy that in some small way my exchange with this entrepreneur helped validate my message. Here was an experienced business person and entrepreneur developing a business plan for a business but the process had nothing to do with raising money. That should be a good lesson to prospective or serial entrepreneurs who are starting new ventures in the current business environment where quick exits are virtually nonexistent.

Matt Silk, one of the co-founders of Waterfall Mobile, was in Austin for a few days. We had a chance to catch up with him and ask him about what the company was up to these days. The company is based in the Silicon Valley, but works with big brands everywhere. The company did some really incredible work with their Msgme platform, which allowed the average person to provide neat SMS features without having all the overhead of obtaining their own shortcode. AlertU leverages the mobile infrastructure with a service that allows organizations like schools to broadcast emergency messages via SMS to all their constituents. In a campus-wide emergency, such as what we’ve seen in the news in the past few years, SMS is the best way to read students because their mobile is going to be the one thing that is for sure on and with them. Pretty brilliant really.

Chicago-based INCISENT Technologies, the #4 Fastest Growing Software Company in the U.S., has announced plans to expand its presence into Austin, Texas. The new office will serve as a software development site for the company’s Consumer Optimization and Business Intelligence Technologies.

INCISENT creates technologies that are catalyzing the transformation of traditional industry through unique solutions for the Internet Age. INCISENT’s Consumer Optimization and Business Intelligence technologies are at the forefront of this transformation in online product advertising and automotive retailing. INCISENT’s namesake product and company FirstLook, is the pioneer in Automotive Retail Performance Solutions.

“As INCISENT’s reputation grows, we want to tap into the talent of technology hubs around the country to attract the best and brightest engineers to our team,” said Dr. Krishna Kumar, Vice President of Engineering and IT Operations of INCISENT. “Austin is a hotbed for technology and software engineering talent and is the perfect market to grow our company as we continue to create breakthrough technologies that transform traditional industries.”

Dr. Kumar is heading up INCISENT’s talent search and will be in Austin to help with the initial office launch. Set to open at the end of this summer, the Austin office will house a senior-level engineering team with demonstrated breadth and depth of knowledge in creating technologies to solve customers’ business problems.

For more information, visit www.incisent.com or call 866-625-7107 or e-mail info@incisent.com

Last week, the folks from the DEMO conference came to Austin looking for some great new startups to launch at DEMO Fall ‘09 in San Diego in September. The invite said over 160 people had RSVP’d and it seemed like everyone involved with tech startups in Austin was in attendance. Chris Shipley has been producing the DEMO conference for 15 years, and the Fall conference will be her last. Matt Marshall, the editor of Venture Beat, is taking over DEMO duties for Chris, and the two will probably be co-hosting the event in September.

Chris Shipley, Bryan Menell, JT Keating at the DEMO happy hour

In case you are just now reading this, don’t think you’ve totally missed out. You can still apply to launch your company at DEMO in the Fall.

One interesting change for the Fall conference is the introduction of the Alpha Pitch. Unlike the traditional DEMO 6-minute pitch, the Alpha Pitch is 60-seconds and it’s a less expensive route for companies that are not quite mature enough for a full launch at DEMO. If you’re not familiar with the DEMO conference, there are around 400 attendees that come to hear approximately 50 companies launch on stage. Attendees are some of the most notable venture capitalists, journalists, and analysts in the tech industry today. DEMO was a leader in demanding that companies abandon their slide decks in favor of showing the actual product. I guess that’s why it’s called DEMO and not SLIDES, right?

Last week we had a chance to speak with Chuck Gordon, the CEO at SpareFoot.com. The website is the rental marketplace for extra space. They’ve also made some cool improvements to the website recently, so check it out and turn your spare garage into cash.

Zilliant, the leading provider of price optimization and management solutions for B2B manufacturers, distributors, high-tech, and industrial service companies, today announced it has been named to the 2009 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100 list. Zilliant is recognized as an innovative leader in the Order/Demand Management category for enhancing order and pricing management practices in its customer’s supply chain to not only meet today’s urgent business imperatives of the current economic downturn, but also to thrive as the economy rebounds.

“Since the economic shift, we’ve seen a trend among market leading companies. They are investing in price optimization to maximize their market share without going too far and giving up more margin than they really have to,” said Tim Hamilton, SVP of sales and marketing, Zilliant. “This SDCE recognition reflects Zilliant’s commitment to delivering pricing solutions that enable B2B manufacturers to improve their performance in good times and bad.”

Eight years ago, Supply & Demand Chain Executive announced its first “100″ list of supply chain solution providers, consultants and other organizations that were helping lead the way in transforming companies’ supply and demand chains. This year the magazine focused the criteria for its “100″ feature on economic recovery.

“Our readers turn to Supply & Demand Chain Executive to learn about solutions and best practices for enabling the supply chain to weather the current economic storm in which we find ourselves, and also to position themselves for growth when recovery takes hold.” explained Andrew K. Reese, editor of Supply & Demand Chain Executive. “The corporate executives and line-of-business leaders who rely on the magazine want to know what the different supply chain solution and service providers are doing to help them meet these critical, corporate ‘life-or-death’ challenges.”

Supply & Demand Chain Executive has identified leading providers of supply chain services and technologies who are helping their customers and clients both respond to the downturn and, more importantly, position themselves for growth ahead. Based on submissions to the “100″ from end users and solution providers, the judging committee for the “100,” including the editorial staff of the magazine, in conjunction with the editorial advisory board, has compiled a list of leading supply and demand chain innovators.