startup

SAN FRANCISCO--By late afternoon on Tuesday, it was getting awfully hot in the conference venue hosting TechCrunch50. Blame it on the body heat, or maybe the scores of laptops humming away.

But the air was sure to get a little hotter when it came time for the "Social Media Streams" category of start-ups to present.

The organizers of TechCrunch50 decided to save the last slot on the final day of the event (you know, right before everybody starts downing booze at the cocktail reception) to showcase new start-ups that deal with Silicon Valley's most hyped niche of … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The fall season has officially begun. Starting Monday morning, the annual TechCrunch50 conference took over the San Francisco Design Center for two days of start-up pitches and presentations; the conference's angle, as co-hosts Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis reiterated, is that all 50 companies on the roster are completely new and launching for the first time.

Start-ups presenting at the conference, which were chosen through a behind-the-scenes elimination process, were grouped into categories. The first of the day was "Youth & Games," with an array of kid-focused and entertainment start-ups.

The day had already begun with … Read more

Whether you're creating the next Facebook or you have a patent on three-tiered umbrellas, you're an entrepreneur. But finding funding for your idea, getting some advice, or even just talking to people in your same situation can be difficult. Social networks designed specifically for entrepreneurs aim to help you achieve your goals. Check them out.

Cofoundr To sign up for Cofoundr, you'll need to input a work or school e-mail address. That's annoying, considering many people have ideas that they've yet to start, but it's not a deal-breaker.

Once you do sign up for the site, you can immediately input all your personal information, including where you're from, what the focus of your business is, and more. Based on those responses, Cofoundr will match you with other entrepreneurs in your area. If you want to share your idea to see if investors will give you some much-needed capital, Cofoundr's Ideas page will help you out. But perhaps Cofoundr's best feature is its member-search option, which allows you to find people based on their expertise. Whether you're looking for a venture capitalist or strategy executive, the site will provide it. It's a nice service.

Entrepreneur Connect Entrepreneur.com's Entrepreneur Connect is a fine way to connect with other business owners. But unlike many of the apps in this roundup, Entrepreneur's service provides access to a wider array of companies.

When you first get to Entrepreneur Connect, you'll find that you don't need to waste your time registering. Instead, you can jump right in and start networking with other entrepreneurs. The site's "Make Connections" feature is especially useful. You can input certain criteria you're looking for in a connection and it will find people matching those items. The site also has some active groups for every industry represented in the social network. Entrepreneur Connect is a neat service. Try it out.… Read more

CNET News reporter Greg Sandoval joins the podcast to talk about his multipart series on the once-promising music start-up SpiralFrog, which folded last year as a result of factors including inexperienced and divided leadership, wild spending, and strategic missteps. He talks about what lessons the saga might hold for other start-ups.

That, plus other headlines of the day on Tuesday's CNET News Daily Podcast.

Today's stories:

Chevy Volt to pull 230 mpg in city

Apple adds antiglare to 15-inch MacBook Pro

PayPal targets students, parents with debit cards

MLB beefs up Roku's rotation

Inside the short, troubled life of a music start-up… Read more

StartUp Organizer is an easy-to-use utility that lets users review and customize the programs they have set to run when they start their computers. The program's multiple features and intuitive interface make it a great choice.

The program's interface really couldn't be simpler. A list of programs that are set to run on start-up is the first thing users see, and users can easily enable or disable programs by checking or unchecking the boxes next to each one. Of course, users can also make this change in the Windows System Configuration Utility--StartUp Organizer even contains a link … Read more

Those who joined the technology industry in the 1990s can be forgiven for believing that dramatic wealth for paltry effort is the norm.

For everyone else, it's worth being reminded of something that Trevor Loy, a partner with venture capital firm Flywheel Ventures, said in recent congressional testimony:

We expect to hold a typical venture capital investment for 5-10 years, often longer and, since the technology bubble burst, rarely much less.

Unfortunately, Loy is not alone. In fact, as Tim McAdam and Jim Tybur of Trinity Ventures told me over breakfast Thursday morning, 20 years of National Venture Capital Association data (PDF) … Read more

Venture capital has not died, despite a big dip in Q1 2009 financings. But honestly, everyone might benefit if a significant percentage of the industry's members went on life support.

So while ReadWriteWeb waxes hopeful about the venture industry's 61 percent jump in financing in Q2, I'm not so sanguine.

As The Economist notes, we still have an oversupply of poorly managed venture capital firms:

(The) root cause of the (VC) industry's problems...is that most venture capitalists have failed to find enough decent companies to deliver the return they promised investors....Although many venture capitalists … Read more

Totlol developer Ron Ilan had enough.

It had been just over a year since he launched his site of community-vetted YouTube videos--where kids can watch Elmo, cutesy animal videos, or "Big Comfy Couch" without the accidental off-color search mishap. And, despite its popularity, he couldn't find a way to make it sustainable or survivable without adverse impacts.

So, earlier this month, at two in the morning, he wrote a long explanatory note to Totlol's users that ended with, "I'm closing Totlol down. Life goes on." Then he went to sleep.

"I woke … Read more

This free program scans start-up applications to differentiate the necessary programs from any potential spyware threats. We found its user interface awkward to read and its results mostly inconclusive.

Startup Inspector for Windows features cartoonish icons, and the overuse of colors makes it hard on the eyes. The interface can be resized to full screen, and you can resize the information columns, but we still had problems with the Comments section getting cut off. A tree menu gives you the option of displaying all of your start-up programs or drilling down to only reveal specific Registry folders. The few command … Read more