By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:

Want to find a dance partner near you? Want to find a workout partner near you? Want to find a tennis partner?

A new website called CribSocial.com can help you. This Bay Area startup, which was launched in November of 2009, provides a platform where people with similar interests can connect and socialize offline through activities in their neighborhood.

While many social websites such as Facebook and MySpace are mostly viewed as indoor activities that are enjoyed alone in your house or apartment, CribSocial.com encourages offline interaction, indeed that is the entire point of the site.

It’s free service which allows people to create and participate in social activities in many different categories such as dancing, hanging out, sports, education etc. People can look for a dance partner, hiking groups or simply someone interesting to hang out with. Besides the individual activities users can also create social groups that meet regularly as well as one time special events such as a sports event or music concerts.

As stated, CribSocial.com’s mission is to encourage people to socialize more offline and meet new people through activities. It has a goal is to keep the service free and simple.

Users can search and find activities using CribSocial’s search portal. It provides options to search using the keywords, category, number of participants and proximity by zip code. Searching for activities does not require any special sign in or registration. However, in order to create an activity you need to have an account with CribSocial.

Creating an activity is relatively straightforward and only requires basic information such as title, date and time, location and detail of the activity. The activity’s location is also shown on a map for better geographical understanding. They want to make it extremely easy for anybody to find a companion who also shares their passion.

“The goal of the website is to encourage people to socialize more with locals in their community and experience the world outside virtual social communities” says Founder, Ravinder Virk.

The founder of CribSocial.com, Virk is an entrepreneur from Silicon Valley who grew up in India. Since graduating from UC Berkeley with bachelors in Computer Science in 2005, he has been working for one of the leading online price comparison-shopping engines, Nextag Inc. Virk also helped to make the independent music site, Vjingle.com a reality.

The company is launched to the US market and plans to expand internationally within a year. The site is already seeing various activities forming across the country. Keeping their commitment to being completely free for users, the service displays textual ads as a source of revenue. So you social butterflies should take advantage of this free site and plan your next activity. Also if you are new to the big city, use it to hook up with like-minded folks.

Post from: GreatStartups.com

By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:

While Facebook searched for ways to monetize its behemoth of a site. Other business are seeking ways to use the power of Facebook to create their own businesses

Launched on November 12, 2009, a Cape Town, South Africa startup called Personera.com is seeking to use Facebook for its own purposes.

Personera.com allows people around the world to design and order print products personalized with their Facebook content. You can use your Facebook account to sign in, customize and order your product.

Personera’s service allows people to use their Facebook accounts to log in through Facebook Connect, and make their entire social network content instantly available for product personalization. Users are able to choose a theme, automatically add their friend’s birthdays and events each day, and drag and drop their favorite photos into the monthly layout.

A high quality 12-month, 32-page printed calendar then is delivered to their mailbox. The service itself costs $24.95, but that includes shipping to anywhere in the world.

Personera.com feels that there offerings mark a significant shift for the mainstream calendar market, because their fast and easy individual personalization becomes available to more than 300 million mainstream Facebook users worldwide.

The ideas behind Personera.com were dreamed up by co-founders Sheraan Amod and Jaco de Wet, self-described “evangelists” in the radically separate worlds of web and print.

“By combining our passion for old and new media, we looked to find the best of both worlds - a simple way to customize print to the same level that people have come to expect online” the pair said in a joint statement announcing the launch of the site.

The site is real simple to use and with the launch behind them, Personera.com looks forward to creating new markets in old media.

Post from: GreatStartups.com

By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:

Not all fundraising and charitable organizations are long-term ventures. Moreover, these charities have the infrastructure and capital base to last as going concerns. However, many fund-raising/charitable efforts are short-term efforts to raise money for a specific purpose. For example, raising money for individuals with cancer, raising money for accident victims, or raising money for an injured firefighter.

In these circumstances, keeping overhead down and reach donors quickly and efficiently is paramount.

A Chicago based web startup called GiveForward.org is providing an answer for these situations. Started in August of 2008, GiveForward.org provides free personal fundraising pages to individuals to raise money for friends and family members battling illnesses like cancer.

The Chicago Tribune has called GiveForward.org “The future of medical fundraising in the Internet Age.”

GiveForward.org helps individuals raise $10K, $20K and even $30K + to pay for their friends medical expenses. It gives people an easy way to help their friends and loved ones when they need it most.

By incorporating social media such as Facebook and Twitter to help empower users, GiveForward.org raises money from people all over the country for good causes. It is turning the idea that social media is frivolous on its head.

Co-founder Desiree Vargas, worked as a specialist in collegiate entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City and as an independent consultant for Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors. Her passion for philanthropy and the role that young and small-scale donors can have on our communities has been a cause celebre. When not working, she spends her time inventing new recipes that don’t always work, walking her golden retriever, Ellie, and going to Zumba. Desiree likes Hangar One, cheese, and kicking Ethan’s butt in bar trivia.

She remembers being distraught when Hurricane Katrina hit because she wanted to employ the same practices we used every day with the few dollars that she personally had to give. But, there was no easy way to give directly to a family wanting to rebuild. Her and her colleagues talked openly about how much more we would give if we knew money wasn’t being lost in the bureaucracy. She thought to that there should be a site where people can give directly to people and causes they care about. Eventually GiveForward.org was born.

A review of the site sees also kinds of spirited individuals stuck on horrible situations not of there own making. With GiveForward.org caring and giving people can reach these people and give then the financial support they need.

Post from: GreatStartups.com

By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:

What if Google Maps were more than just a place to get directions and local information filtered by Google. What if you could go to the house you grew up in on a map, post a note in your old neighborhood and find your childhood friends?

That’s the idea behind ZoomAtlas – a map that aims to be friendlier, social, and more informative than any other map service out there. The wiki-mapping site that launched on Monday, November 16, 2009, has built a detailed, photo-realistic map of the United States, blending satellite imagery with user-edited details, lending a realistic description to specific neighborhoods or areas.

The free site combines the technology of interactive maps with the social networking of Facebook for users to post notes, stories and insights to reconnect its users with friends, family and places from their past.

Site-customization tools users can update map details including roads, railroads, waterways, sidewalks and property lines to miniscule landscaping details like grass, flowers and bricks on residences, restaurants, schools, parks, workplaces and more. Beyond updating location-specific aesthetics and details from the past, the map enables users to post information and notes for family and friends at important locations in their collective lives.

“Facebook is a great tool to find and connect with people using the site, but what about those who aren’t on Facebook, or what about connecting with the places, not just the people, from your past?” asks Mark Sherman, founder and CEO of ZoomAtlas. “Our beta testing found users want more than to simply connect with people, they also want to share their experiences, recommendations and expertise about the places they know the best. ZoomAtlas creates a geo-social networking experience that takes social networking to the next level through an interactive map that is friendlier, social and more informative – interactive map meets Facebook as a place for people to reconnect with their past by mapping their lives.”

“ZoomAtlas makes all notes and details logged available to the top search engines so that any search for any combination of the information entered is likely to result in a successful hit to reconnect – even when an individual being sought is not a user of the site,” said Sherman.

Individuals are encouraged to post as much detail as possible about a place or memory to increase their chances of reconnecting with people from the past. They can also map their lives using the LifePath feature, which creates a visual timeline of the places they have been and lived. The timeline can then be posted on Facebook to share with friends.

The ZoomAtlas database currently contains 140 million places in the United States. The database will continue to expand over time as users add places and map their lives.

Post from: GreatStartups.com

By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:

Vacation homes seems to be the flavor du jour on the web. I recently did a story on mimbeo.com. Now there is another company who has a different spin on accessing vacation homes on the web.

SecondPorch.com is a brand new innovative, Facebook application that allows user to trade and rent vacation homes among their trusted group of friends and networks. Based in Portland Oregon and launched SecondPorch.com is the first socially enabled vacation home site available on Facebook. Its Facebook application is titled “Rent & Trade Vacation Homes”.

Vacation home rentals are a growing $50 billion industry. Currently there are 8 million second homeowners in the United States alone, of which less than 25% are used as rentals. In today’s tight economy, SecondPorch.com is offering a chance for consumers to significantly save money, as well as create a new outlet to recoup investments of owners strapped by second mortgages.

Brent Hieggelke launched SecondPorch.com not just because vacation home rentals are the fastest growing segment of the lodging industry, but also because he had a rental horror story of his own. Apparently a few years ago, Mr. Hieggelke’s father rented his vacation home through traditional means only to find that the group of 20 men hosting a bachelor party managed to cause about $4,000 worth of damage including a fireplace glass door broken, all of the pictures on the walls of historic photos had been broken, and glasses of red wine had been smashed against the walls. Mr. Hieggelke knew right then that someone needed to create a way to rent or trade vacation homes among a trusted group of friends thus Second Porch was born.

SecondPorch.com has an attractive; easy-to-use design allows users to display property photos, information, and updates on their profile pages. Travelers can also post queries for specific trips and homes sought through a feature called “friendsource.” User can choose to “follow” a property, which allows them to bookmark the home listing and receive updates. They can view or discuss homes their friends are following or have recommended and decide if they want to follow those homes as well.

SecondPorch.com integrates with Facebook’s wall stream messaging, which allows friends to discover their friends’ vacation rental homes (and the application) through tasteful updates, photos, and teasers. Simple to use filters help users to find homes using standard features, including rate, number of bedrooms, and location; along with unique filters for relationship and whether available for rent or trade.

Post from: GreatStartups.com