The New York Tech Blog

The following is an interview with Rony Zarom, President and CEO of Watchitoo.

Watchitoo uniquely combines HD videoconferencing, streaming video and multimedia collaboration software for education, entertainment and business customers around the world. It all takes place in your Web browser – no downloads are required.

What is your company/service?

It’s a Web platform that lets you create an HD videoconference that brings together 25 people—more than any other video conferencing tool allows. During the group videoconference, you can live stream the event and collaborate on documents, presentations or other multimedia. Thousands more can follow along, chatting via text and posting social messages to followers.

Watchitoo is perfect for celebrity events, virtual classroom learning and corporate sales/training. No other conferencing or streaming platform enables all this. Watchitoo operates in the user’s browser and requires no downloads. Customers can easily embed Watchitoo in their website or Facebook page and broadcast directly from it, creating their own social TV channel. Read the rest of this entry »

Parke New York is a new online, vertically-integrated clothing brand that’s seeking to revolutionize denim jeans, while also reviving New York manufacturing. The company is the latest in a new wave of online fashion companies started by tech entrepreneurs and freshly-minted MBA graduates. Parke launched on Kickstarter today, offering technologically advanced, selvedge stretch jeans for men and women for $125 – a price that’s 50% less than traditional prices for selvedge jeans, which often cost $300.

The project began when Solomon Liou, a New York entrepreneur, had worn out his favorite jeans and went shopping for new ones. “Shopping for jeans can be a very frustrating experience”, Solomon explains, “and it was difficult to find comfortable, durable jeans at a reasonable price”. As a result, Solomon decided to develop his own jeans using technologically advanced denim.

Without any formal training in fashion, Solomon began working with local craftsmen in New York City’s Garment District. “From this community of artisans, I learned how clothing should be made – by using great fabric and craftsmanship.” Solomon and his team spent the last 12 months developing jeans with a unique fabric that combines highly durable selvedge denim with a innovative stretch technology. Selvedge is a rare type of denim that is woven on antique shuttle-looms, and is known to be more dense and durable. High quality selvedge jeans can cost up to $1,000. It’s not your average denim.

With Kickstarter, Parke New York aims to raise $50,000 to start their initial production run. However, the company hopes to exceed their goal by 3-5x, following the path of other successful fashion projects on Kickstarter like Ministry of Supply, which raised $429,276 for men’s dress shirts, and Flint & Tinder, which raised $291,493 for men’s underwear. Reaching $50,000 alone would make Parke the largest amount raised on Kickstarter for any denim jeans product. With online holiday shopping at new highs, the company is positioned well to succeed.

Learn more about the company by visiting their Kickstarter page: http://nyte.ch/premiumtechjeans

The following is an interview with Anita Mirchandani, founder of FiTMAPPED.

Company Description: FiTMAPPED is the first-ever, all inclusive, searchable database for the full breadth of fitness options in the New York City area. From large gyms to boutique fitness studios, specialized classes, bootcamp workouts and more, FiTMAPPED makes it easy for New Yorkers to find the fitness options that are both right for them and right in their neighborhoods (and it’s free!). We think of it as “your GPS for fitness.” Our goal is help urban residents find fitness easily and provide a social platform with which they can connect with fellow fitness enthusiasts.

Your Target Market and What You are Attempting.

Our target market is anyone interested in fitness between the ages of 18-50. We are attempting to provide a comprehensive database so that people can trust visiting our resource to find fitness easy and simple. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is an interview of John Lee, Co-founder/CTO, School Yourself.

What Is Your Company

“Students are not engaged by boring, static textbooks, which can often cost upwards of $100. At School Yourself, we’re reinventing the textbook by creating the world’s most immersive and interactive books in math and science for middle and high school students, and making it affordable for everyone. We’d love to connect with investors and educators who are interested in the future of STEM education.”

What is School Yourself?

We’re developing brand new ways to interact with textbooks by recreating the ideal 1-on-1 tutoring experience in digital form. Our approach to solving this problem is two-fold: we’re making content that doesn’t bore you by providing a unique hands-on experience for even the most abstract subjects like calculus, and then looking at the tons of data you generate from using our interactive book to help you out on the topics you’re struggling with. Read the rest of this entry »

Feelytics is a social and analytical tool that helps you track and share feelings. Currently, it’s only available on the Apple app store.  The following is an interview with Kuan Huang, Co-Founder of Feelytics.

What were you doing before?

We all have our day jobs and Feelytics is our side project at this moment. Chunxi works for Betaworks and previously she was working on the mobile team at New York Times. Guy Lee is a senior designer at MTV and has been the art director behind numerous MTV digital products. Nikko currently lives in Shanghai and he co-founded Neocha, a leading social network for creative youth. I am the tech lead at Hatch Labs, a mobile-focus startup incubator owned by IAC. Read the rest of this entry »

2gnōME (to know me) establishes precise measurement of an individual’s behavior, character, skills and competencies. Think Klout or Kred but for real-life values that actually matter. The company drives service adoption through B2B channel partners.  The following is an interview with Ilya Zeldin, Founder of 2gnōME.

Who Is Your Target Market and What Are You Attempting?

2gnōME offerings target 50 million youth and young professionals. For this demographic, our service avails self-awareness – in real life, through the eyes of trusted peers – to achieve a competitive edge with higher emotional intelligence and to advance careers. Read the rest of this entry »

DailyGiver provides a simple and easy way to make giving to charity a regular part of your life. By allowing donations as small as $0.01, and utilizing an algorithm that finds causes interesting to you, DailyGiver ensures that the hurdle to giving has never been lower. The following is an interview with Ben Oaks, Co-founder of DailyGiver.

Who is Your Target Market and What You are Attempting?

The old methods of giving are mismatched with today’s fast-paced, online atmosphere. DailyGiver is for anyone who wishes they gave back more Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s interview is with Kelsey Recht, founder of VenueBook.

VenueBook is NYC’s 1st full service, complimentary, online event planning tool created to take the pain out of event planning. Think OpenTable but for events.

Q: What is your company/service?

VenueBook’s new technology simplifies and streamlines the event booking process for both the organizers and venues. It allows users to search venues based on specific criteria, match them with only relevant options and allows them to book all event details/payment from start to finish. For venues, it allows them to list their space complimenary, vet new leads and manage all their events on VenueBook’s cloud-based software program. Read the rest of this entry »

Group Commerce, a tech (“not so much anymore”) startup, is hosting the Think Commerce Summit, which focuses on the collision of content and commerce in the tech industry. They’ve lined up some great speakers including Jon Millier, Bob Pittman, Ben Lerer, and many others from leading tech and media companies. The conference is December 4th in New York, and they’ve offered our readers free passes ($550 value)! There’s a limited supply, so go to http://think.groupcommerce.com and use the promo code “THINKMIX2012″ while tickets are still available.

Today’s interview is with Melina Ash, co-founder of nomorerack.com.

Nomorerack is the place for every day value – At 12pm EST everyday a new set of product deals are introduced. We introduce over 200 skus on a daily basis ranging from fashion, jewelry, electronics, home items and more at discounts up to 90% off. We are disrupting the way retail works by connecting manufacturers directly to consumers. Building a brand synonymous with “extreme value” and “great service”. Think Target Brand + Walmart Scale without the brick & mortar overhead.

Q: Where did your vision/inspiration for this company come from?

I was always surprised by the big price discrepancy between the true manufactured cost of an item, and the selling price. The amount most retailers have to mark items up to cover their large overhead, always leads to a high price for customers. Read the rest of this entry »