Vator Box episode

Vator Box: Match.com founder Gary Kremen helps us rate ShareThis, Genius Rocket, T5M Gary Kremen

Innovation show by Bambi Francisco Roizen
February 18, 2008 | Comments (0)
Short URL: http://vator.tv/n/13f

Welcome to our version of "Siskel & Ebert" meets "American Idol." We call it Vator Box, and this is our third show. The Box is where we sit around the table with an outside expert and rate pitches on Vator. In this episode, we have the usuals - yours truly and Ezra Roizen (Vator contributor and investment banker for digital media companies) and our guest host Gary Kremen, who founded Match.com and has invested his own money in 40-plus startups. Gary is pretty savvy about online business models, so I invited him to be part of the Box. In this episode, we look at ShareThis, Genius Rocket and T5M. ShareThis is trying to aggregate so-called social services, such as sending (to email contacts), posting (onto Facebook, MySpace), collecting (via RSS, bookmarks), rating and recommending (to Stumbleupon). Ultimately, the service wants to identify social behavior and target ads against it. Genius Rocket is a Bethesda, Maryland-based platform that essentially is an Innocentive for marketers and advertisers. It's a place where advertisers and brand managers can find user-generated advertisements through competitions. In many ways, the competition set-up is also very similar to Vator's competitions, where investors or organizations or conferences can send out an RFP (request for pitches) via competitions. Genius Rocket was started by an old friend of mine, Mark Walsh, a seasoned and successful entrepreneur. The third company we rate is T5M, which is what I call the "Inspiration Network."

Check out the show. We welcome all comments, even about our own analysis. And, don't forget. If you want the Box to rate a particular company, or if you'd like to be a guest host, just email me on Vator or post a comment. 

0 comments

Latest company updates on Vator.tv

NeuStep - Lee Syrjanen (Business Development/Business Operations)
It's Friday and almost weekend time. Our CEO should be having a baby any minute now. ...
See more about 2 hours ago
Brand Thunder - Kevin Dwinnell (Director, Product & Marketing)
Innovation Ohio Loan Fund - helps fund next phase of platform development for Brand Thundedr! Great ...
See more about 2 hours ago
Christian is in the bay today at the TechCrunch Social Currency Event http://www.phonehalo.com/2010/07/techcrunch-social-currency/
See more about 4 hours ago, 1 thumbs up
MediaMojos - Tony Dillistone (Co-founder and Partner)
US mobile web on the rise as userbase hits 77 million. Geo-targeted ads pushing app downloads. ...
See more about 5 hours ago
The Financial 411 's data was edited about 6 hours ago

Other episodes of this show

Can CrowdFlower become a Thunder Lizard?

9102_crowdflowerfinal2

Vator Box

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Super angel Mike Maples is our guest host analyzing the labor crowdsourcing startup

Education site Udemy doubles down on poker

9090_splashbox_4x3

Vator Box

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Vator Splash winner plays a cool hand before VCs from Lightspeed, August Cap, and SoftTech VC

The prospects for a Facebook for calendaring

8511_dormnoisefinal

Vator Box

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Angel investor Jeff Clavier analyzes the opportunities for a calendar service for colleges

Splash culminates with Splash Box

8328_splashboxfinal

Vator Box

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Investors from Greycroft, Venrock, NEA and Ackrell Capital analyze RentCycle - Splash overall winner

Video startups aren't an easy sell

8088_vidlyfinal

Vator Box

by Bambi Francisco Roizen
Super angel Jeff Clavier shares his investment philosophy around video ventures, specifically Vidly
© 2010 Vator, Inc.