Goshi: Window Shopping from Your Phone for Cool, Local Stuff

Editor's Note: See all our Excelerate Labs coverage here.

WHAT: Etsy-meets-foursquare app. Find and buy paintings, jewelry, furniture and other "unique" items in your area like unusual toys. View items by location or by what people in the community think is cool. Actual "marketplace" composed of independent coffee shops (50 in Chicago so far) that either display the work for sale or serve as a meeting point for buyers and sellers. Artists/sellers (for now) are reachable through comments portion of their item listings. Most popular items so far are vintage antiques and furniture.

Goshi is experimenting with pop-up marketplaces where artists bring in items they've posted and the public can browse and buy.

App is iPhone only, Android coming soon. Market-wise only in Chicago. Next up are New York and San Francisco.

LAUNCHERS: Jack Eisenberg, a developer with a nonprofit background, and Chad Lomax, a long-time IT security specialist.

Click to read more ...

Exchangery to Make Creating New Commodities Markets as Easy as ETrade

Editor's Note: See all our Excelerate Labs coverage here.

WHAT: E*Trade-like platform that can be used to create new commodities markets in anything from virtual currency to locally grown food in about a month, instead of the six to 12 months it could normally take. In the process of getting U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) certification for the platform. Those seeking to set up a commodities market can get advice from Exchangery on whether a new market is viable, how to operate that market, as well as the relationships needed with banks and clearinghouses to cover counterparty risks. 

Just like E*Trade, anyone can set up an account and begin trading in these new markets.

LAUNCHERS: Chris Duesing, CEO; Kellee James, business development.

WHY: Traditional exchanges only deal with large volumes of goods like corn or iron ore. Technology has lowered operating costs and made it possible for...

Click to read more ...

Google Search Rank Might Start Including +1 Button Data

[ Ecommerce sites can now add +1 buttons. If Google adds +1 data to its search algorithm and enough people +1 this item, the page might appear high up in a search for v-neck t-shirts. ]

In a move that has major implications for content and ecommerce sites, Google revealed that it could add data from its "+1" button to its search algorithm, as Wired first reported.

“Google will study the clicks on +1 buttons as a signal that influences the ranking and appearance of websites in search results,” a Google spokesman told Wired. “The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search quality. For +1’s and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are related to quality.”

Google has been taking social activity into account for a while now -- Google Analytics can even show you likes, tweets, etc. This is generating a new round of "social SEO" that resets the entire SEO industry.

Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, told LAUNCH via email, "If +1 becomes a strong signal in Google's rankings or in their spam-filtering algorithms, I suspect we'll see a lot of early attempts at manipulation and spam from bad actors on the web...

Click to read more ...

Lost In Translation? No Longer an Issue on Google+

A Google Chrome extension for Google+ lets users translate posts and comments into more than 50 languages.

"We've heard from a lot of Google+ users wanting an easier way to understand posts written in other languages," explains Google+ engineer Josh Estelle, who notes that the feature is still in its experimental phase.

The free extension uses -- what else -- Google Translate. To install it, download it from the Chrome web store and refresh your Google+ page.

There are a couple of ways to use the feature. Below each post, click the "Translate" link to convert the post into your default language [ change the default in the extension settings, located in the toolbar ]. You can also...

Click to read more ...

Buzz Referrals: Old-School Referral Marketing Revamped for Social

[ Buzz Referral founders Jordan Linville and Jonathan Kelley. ]

Editor's Note: See all our Excelerate Labs coverage here. 

WHAT: Companies get a branded referral program that integrates with their website, Facebook and Twitter. Customers can earn prizes like Amazon gift cards, product gift certificates or other cash awards by referring friends to the company or brand; the friend gets a discount on the service or product. To receive prizes, users must first be signed up on the company's or brand's website.

BuzzReferrals' analytics track clicks, sign-ups, purchases and the origin of traffic.

LAUNCHERS: Jordan Linville, CEO; Jonathan Kelley, CTO.

WHEN/WHERE: 2011 / Chicago.

WHY: Consumers already recommend products and brands on Twitter and Facebook. People respond to incentives. Brands need tools to help acquire and maintain new customers through social media. Referral marketing produces high-quality leads because people trust their friends' recommendations.

BACKSTORY: Jordan ran biz dev at NextWave Media Group, an Internet lead-gen marketing firm. Having gone to business school with the founder of energy bar maker Element Bars, Jordan helped the company create a social-media advertising tool. While working with Element Bars, he realized...

Click to read more ...