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Focused tech noise. On-demand shipping company @shyp has revived its partnership with @GoodwillIntl, and over the next month, it will do pick ups of donated items in not only SF but also LA, NYC, and Miami, with no pick-up fees; donations are limited to clothes, personal items, and things that can fit in the backseat of a four-door car. Swarm 2.3 Feels Like The Old Foursquare, Looks Way Better. Foursquare has today released an update for Swarm, the company’s social check-in app, that brings far more of the delightful gamification of the old Foursquare back to the service. But today’s update is just a pre-amble to version 3.0, which will be released in the coming weeks, and will include Mayorships within the entire Swarm community, as well as a leaderboard between friends and a one-player game within the world of stickers.

Today’s release starts that transition with the launch of around 70 stickers (there were originally a couple dozen) and eventually the company plans to have a collection of 100 stickers. “The overall theme of our work on Swarm is about how we can make it more fun,” said Dennis Crowley, Foursquare cofounder and CEO.

“When we split off Swarm we focused on the core utility of finding friends nearby, and then we built messaging into it, but there was a minimal amount of game mechanics. 6 (1) 6 spaghetti stickertransmuter swarmwatch. Dain Binder sur Twitter : ""Startup News" Android app updated with additional news sources and new startups. #startups. Entrepreneurship & the Real Downfall of Failure — StartUp, Business and Entrepreneurship. Introducing ‘Startup Day Across America’

As two former small-business owners in Congress, we have watched closely and worked hard to support the new pockets of innovation and entrepreneurship that have been sprouting up across the country. No longer limited to Silicon Valley or Boulder, Colo., the startup scene has been thriving in small towns and large cities, red states and blue states, and in industries from technology to food service. Where there once were factories and assembly lines, there are now incubators and accelerators, and business plan competitions.

American ingenuity is being reinvented, as it has time and time again throughout our history. Our greatest innovators are proving that there is no country in the world that can match us at turning dreams and ideas into today’s startups and tomorrow’s Google or Facebook. While great ideas are the foundation of startups, they require support from communities, educational institutions, venture capital firms and others to grow. Introducing ‘Startup Day Across America’ Startup News & Startups. Dbin78 : Vote for National Entrepreneurs' ... National Entrepreneurs' Day. 71 Compelling & Surprising PowerPoint Tips from the Pros. Think you know PowerPoint? Think again. There are so many different tips and tricks for using PowerPoint to give presentations, there’s just no way you know them all.

That’s why we’ve gathered more than 70 different PowerPoint tips from the people who know it best: Microsoft, professional speakers, and geeks who make PowerPoint their business. Check out our list to find out how you can step up your PowerPoint game. 1. Keyboard shortcuts, like Shift+F5 to start a slide show, can help you save time and look more slick when delivering your presentation. 2. Instead of blocks of text, make a point to create graphics like charts that can grab your viewers’ attention. 3. Although images are great for interest and engagement, too many images can be distracting. 4. Think design, not decoration. 5. By layering transparent images, you can create effects, including textured backgrounds. 6. When it comes to PowerPoint, more is not always better. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. Kickstarter Statistics Dissected. Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms offer a great opportunity for anybody with a great idea and the motivation to get the funding they need.

Successfully launching a campaign takes time and effort, but it also requires considerable strategizing. To make this platform more understandable, and to serve as a reference guide, I have crunched some numbers and compiled a fairly comprehensive data set. Here it is: Kickstarter — By the Numbers. Kickstarter Growth Statistics: 2010: 11,130 launched projects – $27 million raised2011: 27,086 launched projects – $99 million raised2012: 68,878 launched projects – $283 million raised Kickstarter Traffic Growth: 2010: 8,294,183 visitors2011: 30,590,342 visitors2012: 34,975,019 visitors Successful Kickstarter Projects, Ranked by Gross Contributions: Film/Video: $86.14 millionGames: $56.34 millionMusic: $52.04 millionDesign: $50.90 millionTechnology: $21.90 millionPublishing: $16.77 millionArt: $15.63 million Statistics on Kickstarter Campaigns:

Dbin78 : "Silicon Valley" is a new comedy... Silicon Valley Season 1: Trailer (HBO) What are your best tools? : startups. Startup News & Startups. Notifei. Submit Startup | Startup Sea. In online TV first, Netflix wins Emmy for drama directing. Netflix won its first Emmy award -- the kind doled out at the flashy, star-studded televised ceremony -- Sunday night, as David Fincher won for best directing of a drama series. The online subscription-video service, which has been touting itself of late as the "world's leading Internet television provider," was nominated for 14 primetime Emmy awards this year, the first time that an online-only service had shows in the running for one of television's top creative honors. Netflix had already won a couple Emmys this year: one Creative Arts Emmy for casting and another for cinematography, both for "House of Cards," which were given out at a ceremony prior to the main event broadcast Sunday evening.

And prior to the 2013 awards, Netflix had a Technology and Engineering Emmy to its name. The night closed, however, without any further awards for Netflix. Change your style everyday with Wea(r)ther, the one-stop mobile app for weather forecast and apparel suggestion. At StartupsFM we are constantly hunting for startups who are trying to solve small problems making our daily lives better. We believe that every problem has a startup. So did Ronald Suwandi, founder of an amazing weather app- that not only gives you the weather temperature but also provides you with suggestions on what to wear. The idea is to give users a quick take on which item to wear so that users can spend the time to focus on something more productive. There is no way you can manipulate weather conditions, but when it comes to your clothes- you can make perfect decisions of what to wear. Sydney based startup Wearther is all game to help you decide what to wear according to the weather. The Wea(r)ther Story The story starts in about April 2013 at Sydney.

The Team and Features Wearther has a creative team working to reduce your dress-selecting time. Wearther is not for ‘weather’ geeks. Optimizer that calculates the clothing combination.Mobile-first design approach. 10 Steps to a Memorable Website for Your Startup. Smart people only visit and buy from credible and memorable websites. In the past, if your startup had a website presence, the company was credible by definition. In today’s world, a website is necessary but not sufficient for credibility. Dreamers and gamblers have found out that if the website isn’t validated as credible, it’s probably a scam, and everyone loses.

Yet most startups I know experience the same shock of disappointment when they first open up their website to offer their “million dollar idea” product, and nobody comes. What validates credibility and makes your site memorable in the minds of consumers, and how much does it cost? Put yourself on the site. People buy from people. These are all minimal-cost survival marketing efforts. In summary, a startup with no website, or a website with no credibility will kill your business. Marty Zwilling. BrandOwner - Social Media Customer Service Platform | Startup Sea. BrandOwner is working on a platform to integrate with your social networks that will be easy to use and give small business owners the ability to communicate with their customers and respond to complaints if there are any, or just to simply say "Thank you" to make the customer feel appreciated. They will be open to large businesses and enterprise level companies, although the primary customers will be owners of small businesses that cannot afford big enterprise level services They aim to fix the problem were a lot of business don't respond back to the complaints or negative things that are said online, or don't converse when a client says something good.

A happy customer is a returning customer that could recommend a business to their family and friends. Month-to-month and annual subscription plans will be offered with a free trial limited-time plan to showcase what their product can do. Follow BrandOwner on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. It was founded by Albert Pak and Jose Duarte. Wishberg - Your One Shopping Cart For Life | Startup Sea. Stagecrush - The Home For Your Online Music Collection | Startup Sea. Stagecrush is like Pinterest for music! It’s the home for your online music collection; a place where you can easily store, share, and listen to the songs and music videos that you find across the web.

Link up with friends to see their collections, discover new music, and talk about the music you love. In the world of Spotify, YouTube, and Google Play Music All Access; where music isn't owned, but just accessed - how do you build strong relationships to music? Everybody remembers the first record they bought, but how many people remember the first song they streamed on Spotify or the first song they heard on Pandora? Stagecrush tries to recapture that magic by providing its users with a platform to collect music in a socially connected way.

Compared to other music sites, Stagecrush is very visual. Startup Sea: Churn Bee - Metrics For Your SaaS Startup. IMOLLO - Send Things, Get Things | Startup Sea. IMOLLO, for Windows and Mac OS, is a communication and information exchange software that gives everyone the freedom to experience easy and efficient file transferring. It was born to make life easier for those who use it. Unlike emails, which have a tendency to catch viruses and with very limited storage capacity, this software is an effective email attachment replacement. It is an easy-to-use system that resembles an online “chat box” rather than a traditional “email box”. The free application allows expeditious and hassle-free online exchange of multiple files by simply dragging and dropping in a “virtual tunnel”. Boddie - The Android Based Smartwatch. Boddie, by Rearden Technology, is a wearable personal assistant smartwatch that will perform actions related to health, entertainment, and security.

Boddie works with Android to let you to check your email and text messages, play music, monitor your health during sporting activities, watch videos, reject or accept calls, and receive social network updates. It will of course have a clock and calendar. These smartwatches are expected to be available in the second half of 2013. Follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ for updated news. OOcharts - The Simple API for Google Analytics.