Josh Constine of TechCrunch recently shared some of the cooler features of TipSense, a great company from last year’s SemTechBiz Start-Up Competition. Constine writes, “No one wants to read thousands of reviews. You just want answers. Luckily there’s TipSense, a new startup whose algorithm sorts big messy data sets. TipSense’s site DishTip tells you what to order at restaurants, for example, while its AppCrawlr deduces an app’s best and worst features and lays them out with competitors on a comparison chart. TipSense is so smart I bet it gets acquired… or at least fields plenty of buyout offers. That’s because while people won’t shut up about big data, few companies have viscerally proven to consumers why it’s important. David Schorr built and bootstrapped TipSense over the last four years to change that. I met him at SXSW, was very impressed, and he agreed to let me write the first official interview with him about his stealthy startup.” Read more

The preliminary program for the upcoming Semantic Technology & Business Conference (June, 2-5, 2013 in San Francisco) was announced yesterday. Today, we are pleased to add that the second annual “Top Semantic Start-Up Competition” is open for submissions! The contest will take place at the conference venue, the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco, on Monday, June 3, 2013. Start-ups who wish to compete should visit http://semtechbizsf2013.semanticweb.com/start-up-comp.cfm for further details.

“It is a very exciting time for start-ups in the Semantic Technology sector. With organizations like Gartner taking note of the importance of these technologies, and companies of all sizes wanting to glean insight from increasingly available data sources, investors and customers are paying attention. Last year, the judges had a difficult time deciding which company would win the prize. This year, we expect that decision will be even harder,” said contest moderator, our own Eric Franzon.

There will be two phases to the contest. In phase one, companies enter a profile of their start-up in an online form (keep reading for details), and ten finalist companies will be selected to present their pitches in person at the Semantic Technology & Business Conference. In phase 2, those ten companies will each deliver a pitch in front of a panel of judges with experience in entrepreneurship and investment. A single company will be selected as the winner. Prizes will be awarded at the completion of each phase.

Read more

The highly-anticipated program for the Semantic Technology and Business Conference (#SemTechBiz), June 2-5, 2013 in San Francisco has been announced. The conference returns to the Hilton Union Square for four comprehensive days of fresh insight and immersive learning from global experts. #SemTechBiz brings together today’s industry thought leaders and practitioners to explore the challenges and opportunities  impacting both corporate business leaders and technologists.

When asked about the program, Conference Co-Chair Eric Franzon said, “When we launched this conference in 2005, the discussion focused around a question: ‘We have this marvelous set of technologies. How can we use them practically?’ Today, we are in a very different place. With impressive case studies demonstrating cost savings, new revenues, and practical implementations, Semantic Technologies have become an important thing for technologists, executives, marketing experts, data professionals, investors, and other stakeholders to pay very close attention to.”

“In June, we will learn from the experience of those who have leveraged Semantic Technologies to make money, save money, gain more value from existing business assets, shorten development times, and solve very real problems. We will hear about how Semantic Technologies are being used to glean insight from ‘Big Data.’ ”

View the program here

Read more

SemanticWeb.com and parent company WebMediaBrands recently announced a contest to earn the title of  “Top Semantic Technology Start-Up.” Today, we have two exciting announcements to make about the contest.

Deadline Extension

We have had several requests to extend the deadline, and are announcing today that we will now accept applications for the contest until April 30, 2012. We also learned of some applicants who encountered technical problems when trying to submit in the early days of the contest. We have fixed the code that caused these problems, and encourage all who experienced difficulties to try again.

Judges

We are also pleased to announce the panel of judges that will be at SemTechBiz evaluating the companies. It’s a great group, and we’re looking forward to a lively afternoon!

Left to Right, they are: Read more

SemanticWeb.com and parent company WebMediaBrands recently announced that a competition will be held at the upcoming Semantic Technology and Business Conference (SemTechBiz) in San Francisco to select the “Top Semantic Technology Start-Up.” The contest begins with an online application process. Out of that pool of applicants, ten companies will be selected to compete in person and on stage at SemTechBiz San Francisco. There is no charge to apply. The ten finalist companies will need to register one individual, but for already registered attendees, there is no additional fee.

Requirements

SemanticWeb.com is currently accepting entrants from now until April 23, 2012. Companies encouraged to apply are those who meet the following conditions:

1. have a demonstrable product (at least in “beta” stage) in the SemTech and or SemWeb space
2. have received no more than a Series A round of financing

Companies can be located anywhere but must have the financial means to attend SemTech 2012. Ten Finalist companies will be selected to compete in a “Pitch Slam” before a panel of expert judges at the Conference. These finalists will be listed in an article at SemanticWeb.com.

Read more

If there’s one thing the Semantic Web arena is full of, it is start-ups. In fact, the slew of creative and innovative ideas out there coming from young companies is one of the reasons for the first Start-Up Competition to be held at the Semantic Tech & Business conference in San Francisco this June.

If you fit the bill and haven’t checked out this opportunity, you should, right this way. Are more opportunities waiting in the wings for entrepreneurs? Yesterday Congress sent the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business) Act bill to President Obama for his signature. Once he signs it – and the White House has said that is the intention – entrepreneurs no longer will be prohibited from advertising their intentions to raise funds for their companies to investors, because the Act abolishes the general solicitation ban. As reported by The Washington Post, “the bill also establishes a framework for crowdfunding — which enables small companies to solicit equity capital from myriad small-dollar investors.”

What’s the reaction from some members of the Semantic Web community?

Read more

SemanticWeb.com and parent company WebMediaBrands are pleased to announce that a competition will be held at the upcoming Semantic Technology and Business Conference (SemTechBiz) in San Francisco. The contest begins with an online application process. Out of that pool of applicants, ten companies will be selected to compete in person and on stage at SemTechBiz San Francisco. At the conference, a single winner will be awarded the prize as “Top Semantic Technology Start-Up.”

Dramatic growth in semantics-based products and applications released over the past years is on the rise. Semantic technologies are no longer a discovery of the future. Organizations such as Google, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, The New York Times, Facebook, Apple, Oracle, IBM, the Library of Congress, Amdocs, Volkwagen & the BBC use them today.

Requirements

SemanticWeb.com is currently accepting entrants from now until April 23, 2012. Companies encouraged to apply are those who meet the following conditions:

1. have a demonstrable product (at least in “beta” stage) in the SemTech and or SemWeb space
2. have received no more than a Series A round of financing

Companies can be located anywhere but must have the financial means to attend SemTech 2012.  Ten Finalist companies will be selected to compete in a “Pitch Slam” before a panel of expert judges at the Conference. These finalists will be listed in an article at SemanticWeb.com.

Read more

Semantic start-up LiveFyre is working to make comments real-time and more interactive: “Comments, Jordan Kretchmer believes, missed the transition to the social web. ‘I looked at the space of how conversations were happening online,’ Kretchmer says, and I saw that the social web had taken interactions between people to a new level, where interactions on publishers hadn’t changed.’ LiveFyre, the company he founded, hopes to help comments catch up. It launched in 2009 with a freemium product that makes comments real-time and integrated with social media. More than 15,000 sites now use it for comments. Some are small blogs that use the product free. Others are large publications like The Sun that pay based on their size.” Read more

A new London-based semantic start-up by the name of State is looking for a Big Data and Machine Learning Engineer. According to the post, “We’re building an ambitious big new site in the social web area, with plenty of technology challenges at the core. We need a software engineer who can work on the machine learning, data mining and recommendation aspects particularly. You’ll need a healthy mix of academic smarts and pragmatic software engineering experience. You’d be joining a young team at the early stages of growth, so there is a massive opportunity to influence the product direction and break new ground.” Read more

Semantic web start-up Reach.ly has announced the launch of its first product, “a unique service that delivers a highly filtered, real-time Twitter stream and conversation tool for hotels to reach potential guests. Reach.ly enables hotels to be the very first to reach out to specific consumers excited about their impending travel to a particular city. Now hotels can fill more rooms without paying booking fees to middlemen.” Read more