AustinStartup

Almost two years ago Bazaarvoice started a counter on their home page marking the number of pieces of user-generated content (UGC) they had served up on the web. We estimated that later that same year they would hit 20 billion reviews. Now, as you can tell from the home page, the company has reached the [...]

A few weeks ago, I participated in a panel at Semantic Web Austin that discussed open data initiatives and how the City of Austin might benefit from incorporating such a philosophy around its data. (If you want to know more about this idea, check out Juan Sequeda’s recent post on this blog.) It was an excellent discussion and I was fortunate to connect with some of the Austin tech scene’s most innovative minds.

One of the more interesting facets of the evening for me, however, was the make-up of the room. The new Texas Coworking space was packed – and not a fellow female in the bunch. The immediate effect was so striking that my first words upon arrival were a Tourettes-like exclamation of, “Holy crap, I’m the only woman here.”

Click Forensics, a leading provider of online advertising verification solutions, today opened the beta testing program for a new platform that will enable online display advertisers to make audience impression filtering and ad serving decisions in real-time. The technology, designed to complement existing brand safety solutions, also features analytics to measure the effectiveness of display [...]

It’s been said: “Imitation is the sincerest forms of flattery.” But, what if the imitation involves completely copying whole sections or the entire works of others? Or, what if the imitation turns out to be a complete fake, but nonetheless is passed off as the real thing?
On the eve of SXSW, these question about [...]

Earlier this year, Derek Williams and Paul Terry Walhus combined their efforts to launch Texas Coworking, an addition to the already growing trend of co-shared workspaces for entrepreneurs, business people and creative folk. After the continued success of Conjunctured, it’s quite clear that co-working is not only a viable solution for many, but a great means to bring everyone together under one roof and connect.

Gov. Rick Perry today announced on the Governor’s Office Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/TexasGovernor) that the state will invest $1.4 million through the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) for Facebook to create a sales and operations office in Austin. This investment will create 200 jobs and more than $3.1 million in capital investment. The TEF funding is conditioned upon [...]

Socialware is emerging from stealth mode, and being increasingly public about its products and services. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m an advisor to Socialware along with Jeff Dachis (Dachis Group), Paul Rogers (Google), and Kenny Van Zant (Solarwinds). The company has been funded to date by some incredible investors, including G-51 Capital, Silverton Partners, and Maples Investments.

The annual South by Southwest Interactive Festival has been known as the launchpad for web-based technology companies. The most famous is probably Twitter, but other companies such as Smule and Gowalla have launched during the festival. Austin-based Localiter is hoping to make a similar splash at the festival with their daily specials made possible by [...]

MyEdu, the definitive online source to increase success and save money in college, today announced $5.5 million in series B funding led by Bain Capital Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Bain Capital, one of the largest and most respected private investment firms in the world. Bain Capital has a long history of funding successful [...]

This morning we launched a redesign of AustinStartup.com incorporating a lot of the feedback we have received from the community since overhauling it last year. With SXSW 2010 just around the corner we felt it was the ideal time to push out the new design. Please let us know if you run into any bugs, [...]