Universities Want Detailed Data on Alumni, GroupCharger Crawls Web to Deliver

WHAT: Universities provide GroupCharger with their database so that GroupCharger can crawl social networks, public data and third-party APIs for information about the dataset, including the top social media influencers and alumni likely to donate. GroupCharger can also tag individuals based on information in their public profiles (e.g., a person who says on his LinkedIn profile that he's a partner at a VC firm would be tagged "investor").

Universities have three ways to use the new data: matchmaking for jobs, personalized introductions and segmented targeting. Alumni association staff access a dashboard that shows them activity among alumni and recommendations for individuals. They can also send emails via GroupCharger's app or their own email system.

Coming in the 2.0 version: pushing content through social media (in addition to email) and allowing alumni to share content directly back to the university without creating a new profile.

LAUNCHERS:  Kirtus Dixon, CEO, has started four companies (two failures). James Weddle, president. Satish Kodukula, CTO.

WHY: Universities want alumni to feel more connected so they give more money. State universities have had their budgets cut and need to find money elsewhere. Students and grads want to connect with alumni in specific fields and professions. Many groups have "lost" members they'd like to find and keep in touch with for networking and fundraising purposes.

WHEN/WHERE: Sept. 7, 2011 / Austin.

BACKSTORY: Kirtus tells LAUNCH he learned about "maintaining the right balance of speed, learning and focus" from his previous startup experiences. For GroupCharger, they interviewed 250 people across different groups before building their minimum viable product. "We knew early on that...

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Node Knockout 2011 -- Top Entries to Watch

Barely two-and-a-half years old, Node.js is designed to handle thousands of simultaneous requests in real time. If Twitter were built from scratch today, for example, the backend could be Node.js. This open-source language powers sites including Etsy, Uber and Yammer, and it's very well-suited to building massive multiplayer online games [ see our story on Node.js ].

The second annual Node Knockout, Aug. 27-29, gave developers exactly 48 hours to build a Node-based web app. The competition's 175 judges have until tomorrow, Sept. 6, to pick winners in seven categories -- including overall team and best solo project -- from the 177 entries. The masses pick the "most popular" winner.

The top prize at Node Knockout 2010 went to Swarmation, a multiplayer "pixel formation" game which is still up but hasn't gone anywhere.

The most popular entry from 2010 was...

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Storymix Offers Affordable, Crowdsourced Wedding Video Platform

[ Storymix founders Marshall Stokes, Ariane Fisher and Mike Fisher. ]

We are profiling the five companies in the Capital Factory summer 2011 class. Our team will be in Austin to live blog the Capital Factory Demo Day on Sept. 7.

WHAT: Gives couples the tools and support to create crowd-sourced, high-quality wedding videos for between $100 and $500, including HD camera rentals. Storymix does all of the editing and delivers final video (and all raw footage) on DVD in about a month.

Users upload the footage to the Storymix site for editing and can arrange the footage as they desire using the drag-and-drop storyboard, or they can leave the editing process up to Storymix. Completed videos are typically 15 to 20 minutes. Other services include slideshows, video save-the-dates and DIY wedding videos, where guests use their own cameras and give video to StoryMix for editing.

Camera rental for U.S. and Canada only. Coming soon: an iPhone app so people can take footage and upload it directly to StoryMix.

LAUNCHERS: Mike Fisher, CEO. Ariane Fisher, Creative Director. Marshall Stokes, CTO.

WHY: Professional wedding videographers cost $3K+. Not many cheap solutions for shooting and editing quality video. Even if someone shoots video, they rarely finish editing it because the process can be overwhelming and tedious. No easy way to compile and include video wedding guests shoot.

WHEN/WHERE: Chicago and Austin / 2011.

BACKSTORY: "We had another business [ReeltimeDVD] that was mainly focused on transferring and digitizing old analog media -- film, video, slides and photos," Mike says. "What we started to realize...

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Watch out Skype: CNN Using Google Hangouts in Sports Reporting

The story CNN incorporated Google+ Hangouts into wasn't breaking international news -- fan reaction to soccer clubs' transfer deadline -- but it's a big vote of confidence for Google's video-conferencing technology.

The segment for CNN's show "World Sport" included viewpoints from soccer fans, one in Scotland and one in Malaysia. It appears their comments were edited from a Hangout a producer held before the show aired.

The next step, of course, will be Hangouts broadcast live. We'd love to see...

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Google+ Debuts Suggested User List, Says Not Just for Popular Kids

Google+ is piloting a Twitter-style suggested users list that Google VP Bradley Horowitz says includes those who "literally engage" people -- judged by reshares, +1s, comments and Hangouts -- and won't be dominated by the elite once personalized SULs roll out. Although Google+ does not have a list for every interest area just yet, Bradley says this is a "bug" and hints that it will eventually become comprehensive.

On the Google+ SUL: celebrities like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg and Taylor Swift but also popular travel photographer Trey Ratcliff (nearly 81K followers) and nonprofit expert Beth Kanter (463 followers). Categories include broad topics like...

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