You know you may be onto something interesting when you make a few inquiries about a company and suddenly their Web site disappears. That was the case Friday after I made a few inquiries about Bluefin Lab, a stealthy start-up based in Somerville. The company's roots trace back to Michael Ben Fleischman's PhD work at the MIT Media Lab. Fleischman created software Read more
Category: Bluefin Lab, Innovation EconomyThe central topic of conversation over the past few weeks, when two or more tech types gather in the same place, has been whether Twitter is in fact worth $1 billion, and what the company might eventually do to generate revenue. Though it is now three years old, the Internet messaging service still hasn’t revealed the particulars of its business Read more
Category: Crimson Hexagon, GraphEdge, Innovation Economy, OneForty, Thoughtbot, Tweetworks, TwitterAt an unconference, where many simultaneous sessions compete to lure attendees at the same time, coming up with an appealing title for your session is important. Topics are determined at the beginning of the day by the attendees, and session titles are posted to a wall that attendees look at to make their decisions about how they'll spend their Read more
Category: Innovation Economy, MassTLC, MassTLC unConferenceFrustrated by an unfulfilling gig at a start-up company, programmer Craig Spitzkoff decided to create a Web site as a side project. JobVent would allow anyone who had a gripe about their employer to share it online. (Check the scathing reviews of medical device maker Boston Scientific.) Spitzkoff started the site in 2004, and by this year Read more
Category: Craig Spitzkoff, Innovation Economy, JobVent, Raizlabs, TwitterWhen Danielle Duplin used to work in electronics warfare at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, she lived in the North End. "I'd walk out my door right next to the Old North Church and drive to work thinking, 'I'm basically driving the same route where Paul Revere rode his horse.'" Now, Duplin works at Fidelity Investments, in a building next door to Read more
Category: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Innovation EconomyApple finally made Zipcar's first iPhone application available today on its iTunes store, only a few months after Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith had hoped it'd show up there. It's a free app geared to the car-sharing company's existing members. I had a chance to use it today for a lunchtime car rental. Here's my take: - One of the things I was most Read more
Category: Innovation Economy, iPhone, ZipcarThis Friday, it's the coolest, most innovative companies in the Boston area. How was this list created? Last month, at a planning meeting for the new Innovation Open House series, we put a list of 40 or more companies on a whiteboard. (Innovation Open Houses enable a small set of students to get a "backstage pass" to interesting local businesses.) Then, Read more
Category: Cambridge Innovation Center, Google, Harmonix, Innovation EconomyOne of the most popular technology demos from this year's TED Conference came from Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry at the MIT Media Lab. Sixth Sense, as they describe it, is a "wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information" and allows the user to use hand gestures to manipulate that information. Here's the video from TED Read more
Category: Innovation Economy, MIT Media Lab, Pattie MaesOfficially launching today at the Demofall Conference in San Diego is Cortera, a company based in Quincy and Boca Raton, Florida. Cortera aims to be a kind of "wisdom of the crowds"-driven business credit agency. CEO Jim Swift likes to describe it as "Yelp for business credit." And in the same way that the user-powered review site Yelp has Read more
Category: Cortera, Demo Conference, Innovation EconomyThe Friday Five is a list of five things worth knowing about. This week, it's the best on-going networking events in town. I invite you to add your faves in the comments. (Note: this isn't a list of the best networking associations in town, like MITX or the Massachusetts Medical Device Council, but rather regular gatherings of a particular group Read more
Category: Innovation Economy, WebInno