YouCastr is creating an interactive sports network where fans interact with each other before, during and after a game, making the experience of following their favorite sports more fun and social. YouCastr makes it possible for fans to share the experience of enjoying the game by enabling fans to broadcast their own live audio commentary, chat with other fans in real time, and participate in live polling. Everybody loves being at the game or watching it with friends at home or at a bar, but a lot of times, those aren’t viable options. YouCastr wants to bridge the gap between being there and watching alone on TV.

With YouCastr, anyone can become a sports broadcaster. Users can easily broadcast live commentary on sporting events and create shows about their favorite local, high-school, college and pro teams. Unlike traditional radio and Internet streaming, YouCastr allows broadcasters and listeners to interact live. Whether doing play-by-play for the local high-school basketball team, providing additional commentary for college or pro games, or discussing the most recent sports headlines, YouCastr has created a unique, globally scalable platform.

Founded: June 4, 2007 (date of incorporation)
First Broadcast Event: Red Sox vs. Orioles, August 2, 2007 (Red Sox win 7-3)
Private Beta Launch Date: October 3, 2007
Public Beta Launch Date: February 20, 2008
Number of Employees: 5

Trendio was created in march 2006 by Jens Agerberg. The website was at the origin a hobby project for its creator, but the project grew thanks to the support of the users and the interest of the blogosphere. The website is edited by the Trendio company with office in Stockholm, Sweden.

It’s no more a startup, but it’s an excellent example of how to succeed in the Web 2.0 Era.

If this has ever happened to you (even without the “as good as the original one” part), this website is meant for people like you. To use a web 2.0 slogan, novlet.com is a web application that supports collaborative non-linear storywriting.

To use a less abstract language, even if storywriting part is quite straightforward, the other couple of words probably deserve some better explanation.

When reading a “traditional” book, you have a start and one possible end. There is only one way to read a book: from beginning to end, page after page, without any possible deviation. If you imagine the start and the end of the story as points on a sheet of paper, the plot unravels as a straight line, without any possible branching point. For this reason, the story of a common book can be called linear.

If, however, while reading a book, you have an idea and start writing an alternative storyline, what you obtain is a new branch in the story, i.e. there will be some point in time where the plot can take two different courses, that could possibly lead to different endings.

In Novlet they take this idea to its extreme consequences, shattering a story in it’s simplest pieces: each story is divided in passages, sections of texts (usually 2-3 paragraphs long). Each passage can have one or more different continuations: it’s up to you, the reader, to decide how the story you’re reading should go on. And if you don’t like any of the potential continuations that have been already written, you can always write your own one, and start a new storyline.

Eventually, each story will have a single starting point, but a very intricate structure: recalling the sheet of paper analogy, Novlet stories will look quite complicated if compared to normal ones. You’d see a single starting point, but the story would have a branch for every passage with more than one possible continuation. This, basically, is what non-linear stands for.

The explanation of the term collaborative is a lot easier: in novlet, stories can be written by everyone. You could be writing an exciting spy story, or an epic fantasy novel with potentially anyone. If you see a story that you like, you are always allowed (and, possibly, encouraged) to contribute to it.

They are located in Brussels, “the heart of Europe” with international staff and freelancers at our disposal. The offices are in the IT-incubator mVillage. The team of tourist guides, local bloggers and professional speakers is led by managing director Torsten Peters, and has already produced audio guides covering 7 cities (London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Brussels, Vienna and Barcelona – with the Vienna guide offered via their Austrian partner). Almost each of these guides is in 4 languages (EN, FR, DE and IT), with more to come. Only half a year after its launch, iAudioguide is already describing about 250 attractions in these various languages, which means they are already providing more than 1000 minutes of quality content for the modern traveller. Due to its innovative business model, this quality content is available for free.

The main target group for audio guides, is that of tourists with independent minds who want to be more interactive with the city they are visiting, and who want to discover a city at their own pace. These audio guides in mp3 format can be used by anyone with even the most basic mp3 audio player, so no special skills are needed.