Tech Meeting Across the River (Hoboken Tech Meetup)

Hoboken Tech Meetup is a nice counterpoint to the goings on across the Hudson. Though I enjoy the big-city excitement of the NYC version, the Hoboken Meetup I went to last night at Stevens Institute’s Babbio Center also had its share of fun, Jersey style.

I loved when Michael Streko of Knowem (Belmar), social media trademark protection firm, said he sucked at Powerpoints before he launched into his speedy presentation, which had maybe two slides. I get it: we’re not fluff-meisters, we got products that sell and make money.

On this point, Streko stated that his site was profitable within an hour two hours after launch.

Take that NYC startups!

By the way, you should immediately enter your company or product name into Knowem’s free social media and domain search site to see who’s squatting on your web appellations and monikers. This free service examines—and Streko was talking quickly at this point— the top 20 social media sites and hundred domain extensions.

How do they make money? Businesses pay to have Knowem automatically register their profiles on available domains and sites, initiate the process to release a URL that’s been hijacked, and sign up trademarks on newly hatched social media properties. Unlike its competitors, none of the work is outsourced, it’s all done in-house. And that’s the deal!

One of the advantages of smaller meetups—Hoboken Tech had probably less than a hundred attendees— was the opportunity for those gathered to engage more freely with the speakers. Like New York, this group was filled with developers, seasoned entrepreneurs, and lots of start-ups in various stages of their growth cycle.

FYI:The Q&A’s were of very high quality. I enjoyed listening to these more earnest and substantial exchanges rather than ducking as slick quips are flung between audience and stage at the much larger New York University Skirball Center.

Listening to Meetup speakers at Stevens’ Babbio Center

Before I forget, my friends at Bubbalon (Montclair) were there to bring everyone up to date on their happiness measuring startup. Co-founder Todd Hamilton announced there’ll soon be an iPhone app. We’ll keep you posted. I also learned that Bubbalon now lets you tweet your ratings.

Where is all this leading? Hamilton let drop that one of Bubbalon’s goals is to disrupt the focus group industry!

And finally Innovid, which has an HQ in, ahem, New York, showed off its very compelling interactive video ad software. Their iRoll video teasers are unlike the current generation of static 30-second pre-roll commercials that appear at the beginning of many web videos.

If you don’t interact with an iRoll video by clicking on a call-to-action-within the first ten seconds or so the commercial ends. That way, advertisers reach the 1% of viewers who are truly interested, and the rest of us are spared.

Hey Innovid gang, I just checked Knowem, and it appears that your company name is available on Linkedin.