New Web 2.0 Startups

17 Mar 2008 15:52 by Mark

Hot off the internet presses comes this month's exciting news regarding some of the buzzingest Web 2.0 Startups.

Grunterer

Grunterer is a new web startup operating out of Mumbai that aims to extend the current trend of shorter and shorter communication - as seen in text messaging and the Twitter service - to its logical conclusion: the monosyllable.

With much of today's youth already communicating through a series of short, unintelligible sounds anyway Grunterer hopes to capture their limited imaginations and produce a web-based and - eventually - portable device-based social networking system designed specifically for this market.

Grunterer is currently in Alpha testing with sounds - or Grunts - such as "ur", "nh", "beh", and "wuh" already stabilised for a limited invite-only Beta tentatively scheduled for next month.

We think: everyone will be grunting on the web in the very near future!

PreScentz

PreScentz (pronounced presence) is the latest brainchild from Andrei Smzmazma who many of you will know as the Ukrainian genius behind Blinkeee, the pioneering business formed last year to target subliminal flashing adverts at those susceptible to epilepsy.

PreScentz is described as:

... the secure way to share your odours and the smells of your whereabouts with sites and services online whilst retaining total control of your privacy.

PreScentz provides an open API to developers of other social websites to enable smell-tagging in software and hardware. The emphasis is on enabling the user to have complete control over who smells what, where, and how strongly.

Smzmazma and his partner Alexei Werzwzwaz have been attending all the major web and tech conferences over the past few months, promoting PreScentz as - among other things - adding environmental value to adverts (kebab aromas for drunk web visitors), a refinement for dating sites (sniff a potential partner before meeting him or her), and practical jokes (farts).

We think: we're looking forward to finding out how Harry Knowles smells the next time we visit Ain't It Cool.

shrugE

Out of the technological hotbed of northwest Montana comes the long-awaited open beta release of shrugE, the social non-promotion application suite for things that aren't worth buzzing by people who don't really care that much about hyping in the first place. "Shruggers", once they can be bothered to sign up, will be able to shrug about anything - online or offline - if the thing isn't worth getting excited about, or not, really it's up to them. Whatever. If you're the sort of person who often wants to find something that may or may not be just what you're after then shrugE might just be the answer. Or it might not.

Designed to fill the void between those who frequent and use sites such as Digg or StumbleUpon and those who haven't got a computer shrugE may well have discovered a great niche target demographic and as such could find itself desirable to advertisers looking for people apathetic about life and marketing. Is shrugE a good early investment opportunity? I dunno.

We think: a shrugE and Grunterer mash-up might just turn the online world into French teenagers.

Upstartr

Upstartr is a startup still currently in closed beta that claims to be at the forefront of "generational application-based sharing (GASH)" and hopes to be the ideal starting place for all future startups looking to "cyber-urge and idealise their web 2.0 imaginitory visionations" using "social heuristic algorithmic manufacturing (SHAM) technology".

Employing an innovative "autonomous nascency undertaking system (ANUS)" Upstartr aims to create new buzzwords and press releases with minimal human interaction from existing current trends identified by its in-house community to increase exposure and fundingability for brand new startups.

We think: we'd like to take a closer look at this particular startup's ANUS and GASH before we can comment further.