Cool Person of the Day

The industry of ticket reselling has changed significantly thanks to the Internet.  Before the web took over, legitimate ticket reselling meant going to ticket brokers or special agencies.  Now, with companies like StubHub having become very successful, it’s far easier for the average person to resell tickets online without having to resort to scalping at an event.  However, one of the downsides for consumers when buying second hand event tickets online is that sellers now lock in their prices.  The nature of sites like StubHub leads consumers to make quick purchases and leaves no room for negotiations over ticket prices.  Cool person in technology Dan Rubendall founded Zigabid to put some power back in the hands of ticket buyers.  Zigabid connects resellers and potential buyers online and allows for back and forth negotiation over price.  Rubendall instituted an offer and counteroffer system into his website that allows for more flexible pricing.  Any users who have trouble making use of Rubendall’s system online should get help from a tech support service. Read more »

Thousands of families depend on nonprofit services to get by every day in the United States.  Some of these services are government-provided while independent charities run others.  However, cutting through red tape and getting access to these services is not always simple, and many families miss potential help that could make a huge difference in their lives.  There are online directories that can lead people to certain websites and organizations that might help them, but this is only part of the process.  Many families have no idea what to do to get the help they need once they contact an organization, and not every nonprofit has the resources to guide people through different processes.  That’s where cool person in technology Ray Faustino comes in in order to help people with his tech startup OneDegree.  OneDegree doesn’t just provide families with a list of phone numbers and websites, but guides them step by step to getting the aid they need if they are experiencing tough times.  Those who want to use OneDegree but need help navigating the website can get assistance from a reputable online computer support service. Read more »

Two of the most common uses for the web are getting news and finding entertaining content.  Most people bookmark sites and use search engines to find the content they want to consume.  However, cool person in technology Dan Olsen believes it can be even easier to for people to find content on the web.  Olsen refers to his company YourVersion’s main product as a “discovery engine”, which detects a person’s preferences and interests in order to deliver them new content every day automatically.  YourVersion uses two methods to find content that users will enjoy on the Internet: bookmarks and interest tags.  Users can add interests to their profile manually and YourVersion will find content related to those interests.  However, YourVersion also supports website bookmarking and any sites that a user bookmarks for later use on YourVersion also inform the product when it retrieves new content for the user.  People who have trouble signing up for Olsen’s service online can get assistance from a home tech support company. Read more »

Driving attendance to events is not a simple task.  Even if an event should theoretically have drawing power on paper, getting people to come to it can still be an uphill battle without proper marketing. One of the most powerful ways to spread awareness for events is through word of mouth. This reality is likely due to the fact people are most likely to trust recommendations and ideas from people that they already know.  Cool person in technology Anna Sergeeva wants to help event promoters and marketers improve their attendance numbers by leveraging this reality with her company Planana.  Planana provides marketers with online tools that provide special perks to attendees that share information about an event through social media. As attendees share information about an event online, it increases the reach of an event’s marketing by word of mouth.  With more reach on social media, Sergeeva believes attendance numbers will rise for promoters who use her product.  Read more »

One of the most difficult aspects of trying to lose weight is keeping track of calorie intake.  In order to keep weight off once someone loses it, that person needs to know what foods may help and hurt them as they continue.  A general idea about what food is healthy doesn’t always cut it when trying to maintain a physique.  Cool person in technology Dr. Mark Boguski wants to help people maintain their weight with his company PhotoCalorie.  Boguski’s company gives users a mobile app and web platform to keep a digital journal that allows them to keep track of nutrition information for all the food they intake.  With PhotoCalorie, people can easily search for the nutrition information of the food they eat.  PhotoCalorie’s database contains specific nutrition facts about thousands of different foods.  Users maintain a journal of everything they eat and tag the nutrition information to each entry.  This process lets people find out what helps them lose weight and what hurts their efforts. Any users who experience unexpected problems signing up for PhotoCalorie can get help from a remote tech support provider. Read more »

Texting has become one of the most prevalent forms of communication for everyone from powerful CEOs to pre-teens still in middle school.  The ease and convenience of texting makes it a preferred form of communication.  Still, when publishing interviews, people commonly use phone calls or in-person conversations.  While these live forms of interview make more sense for television and radio, a print journalist would benefit from using a less time consuming and more convenient option like texting.  Cool person in technology Blake Ian believes that using text for journalistic and even promotional interviews has untapped potential.  That’s why Ian founded his company Tawkers, which lets people publicly publish the text conversations on the web.  Anyone who has trouble joining Ian’s website to try out the Tawkers service can get assistance from a smartphone computer support service. Read more »

Trying to succeed as a student athlete isn’t always just about skill on the field or on the court.  Gaining buzz and hype around your name and accomplishments is a necessity for any student athletes who want recruiters to approach them about playing on the next level.  Sometimes that means a high school athlete trying to catch the eye of collegiate athletic departments, and sometimes that means college athletes at more obscure universities looking to get attention from professional scouts.  Social media and the Internet can play a key part in the gaining the buzz student athletes need for the right people to notice them.  However, using general-use social networks such as Twitter or Facebook can have mixed results since athletes’ profiles often get lost among the immense amount of content on these sites.  Cool person in technology Patrick O’Quinn founded Awesome.Me to give student athletes a social network designed especially for them where they could garner buzz for their accomplishments without getting lost in the shuffle. Read more »

Analytics and data collection is hot area in the technology industry.  There are countless analytics startups trying to help both large corporations and small businesses grow.  However, cool person in technology Rob Mancabelli believes that analytics can help improve more than just business.  Mancabelli is a former teacher and educational technology director that wants to get schools on the analytics bandwagon in order to find better ways to help young students.  Mancabelli’s company BrightBytes has developed a product for schools that provides actionable data that can help institutions improve children’s experiences and increase their learning.  Mancabelli wants to measure how students interact with what’s available at school and seeing what policy changes affect positive change statistically.  If his product can provide these insights, Mancabelli’s analytics could have a major impact on education.  For example, if analytics prove students using the computer lab more often frequently receive better grades, then there is viable data school officials can use to acquire more funds for things like IT support.  Just knowing the most effective ways to spend a school’s limited funds could make serious change in many kids’ educations. Read more »

Many social networking sites claim to connect people and bring them together, but these connections often exist only in the virtual world of the Internet.  Cool person in technology Kate Spivak believes that connections, whether professional or personal, are much stronger when made in the flesh.  That’s why this cool person founded BlendAbout, a new Internet startup that connects people of similar interests online and then also connects them in the real world.  Spivak’s company accomplishes this by matching up people with similar interests and placing them into group dinners designed for personal and professional networking.  BlendAbout meetings connect six people with similar interests according to their profiles and reserve a meal for them at a restaurant they can all travel to conveniently.  People can use these dinners to meet other people in their professional field or others who share their hobbies.  Rather than only posting comments back and forth in a forum or chat room on the web, Spivak’s startup aims to connect people in the physical world as well.  Read more »

Making products into services has been a common theme among technology startups over the last few years.  Companies like Spotify have taken music, which people once sold like a product in album and single form, and allowed people to pay a monthly subscription for unlimited access to it.  Netflix, Crackle, Hulu and other video streaming companies have made film and television a subscription service for millions of people as well.  Even computer repair companies now offer subscription-based plans as opposed to one-time service.  Now, a cool person in technology wants to transform another product into a service for consumers.  TurningArt founder Jason Gracilieri wants to make professional art subscription-based for admirers.  Read more »