My favourite Beta startups for the moment, and the story they tell...

I love monitoring startup initiatives. The collective vision –and, let’s be honest, gut-feel- of all these entrepreneurs is a source of intelligence any trendwatcher should cherish. Sure, many will fail, or struggle for long years before getting any success. Nevertheless, all these initiatives are an answer to certain demands, even if these are often too small to serve successfully. But to me, they tell a story nevertheless.

Here’s my pick of favourites from the companies that appeared on Betalist last couple of weeks, and the story they tell. 

I’m often asked what the ‘future of social media’ will be. There are many answers to that, none of them really easy or trustworthy. But for the immediate future it is rather clear that we will enter a period of extreme fragmentation of the market. Call it the ‘toothpastization’ of social media. Two of the startups on Betalist (in recent times) are a vivid example of this: Dooers , a community that aims at sharing advise on the best items for any activity, and Travelabulous , a social version of the Lonely Planet, so to speak. What strikes me with these initiatives, and many others, is they tend to focus on providing tangible advise to questions or challenges. It’s social media with a plus…

Talking of which, when combined with crowdsourcing and you get Flotsm, my favourite for the moment, despite its name. Flotsm promises to ‘Harness the wisdom of crowds. Make better decisions. Connect with minds, freely’. A promising agenda, and certainly an initiative I’ll follow closely… 

Another favourite of mine, but for personal reasons, if Teachery. In the era of MOOCs, Teachery offers virtually anyone to become an online teacher, and eventually earn a buck with it… this will undoubtedly unleash a wave of creativity to many researchers…

There’s been plenty of initiatives in the area of the ‘sharing economy’. Yerdl, Eggs & Rabbitholes, etc. Anything new? Well yes: Paperclip adds localization to it, so as to find items to trade your unwanted stuff with right in your neighbourhood. Not sure what the revenue model is for these initiatives, but I love them nevertheless (or perhaps because of that).

Follow this space for more to come!