Deal Radar 2009: Hydra

We continue our coverage of online advertising with Beverly Hills-based Hydra. The company was founded by Zac Brandenberg, who while serving as the VP of the Dohring Company became an expert in conducting surveys online using email. This experience proved to him the power of online resources to connect with consumers and get them to respond. Brandenberg felt that the Internet made it possible to apply the same pool of talent and resources to launch and run a number of different, mutually supportive online businesses. At Hydra’s beginning, these included e-commerce, email and email list management, and a performance-based affiliate ad network. However, with the explosive growth of the ad network business, this soon became the company’s focus. >>>

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Deal Radar 2009: eXo

eXo provides an open source software for areas including enterprise content management, workflow, and collaboration. The software is made for the Enterprise 2.0 workplace and was developed in partnership with its customers and partners. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: Yola

Today’s post is about a company that could be helpful for start-ups or businesses on a tight marketing budget to get exposure on the Web without the high costs. Yola, previously known as Synthasite, is a free, do-it-yourself website creator. It operates on a brower-based Ajax platform and supplies users with simple instructions, tailored services, and drag-and-drop technology, making website creation possible for even the most un-savvy of computer users. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: Kalypso

Founded in 2004, Kalypso is a management consulting firm that specializes in product innovation. Founders Bill Poston and George Young came together at Deliotte Consulting, where they were partners. The idea for Kalypso was born in a St. Regis hotel room in Houston when Poston and Young were attending the retirement party of a close friend and mentor. His retirement was the catalyst that led them to form Kalypso, which they left Deliotte to start in the wake of the consulting industry turmoil of 2003 on a core principle — to serve clients the way they wanted to be served. The two wanted to build a firm that was unlike traditional consulting firms. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: uTest, Massachusetts

This blog has covered various aspects of outsourcing in some depth; today we turn to a business model that is at the crossroads of the older outsourcing model and the growing preference for on-demand and SaaS services. uTest uses crowdsourcing for its customers to test their Web, desktop, and mobile applications through a large community of software testers worldwide. Through uTest, companies can get their apps tested across location, language, operating system, browser, phone maker, model, and wireless carrier (for mobile apps). >>>

Deal Radar 2009: PSS Systems

Today’s Deal Radar focuses on the intersection of the law, compliance, and technology. In 2003, Deidre Paknad predicted that companies would have to change their practices for managing litigation due to the increase in electronic data and founded PSS systems. She spent a year interviewing practitioners and researching the space to develop Atlas, a software suite designed to help companies manage the internal aspects of electronic discovery and defensible disposal. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: Cellufun

Today’s Deal Radar shifts its focus back to mobile gaming with Cellufun. Arthur Goikhman, Steve Dacek, and Cary Torkelson founded Cellufun as a single-user downloadable game business in 2006. After creating a few downloadable games, the team learned that not only were they expensive to create, but they also had a hit-or-miss success rate and a limited shelf life. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: Reply!com

As more small and medium-sized businesses adopt online marketing techniques for local advertising, it’s no surprise that there are an ever-increasing number of companies focusing on local advertising and Web analytics that are eager to offer their services. Over the past few months, Deal Radar has featured notable players in this space. Today’s company, Reply!com, is an online marketplace that targets local and category-specific consumers on a per-click or per-lead basis. The company aims to provide a highly profitable alternative to the online marketing solutions offered by major search engines and ad networks by eliminating the need for complex and expensive online marketing infrastructures. It offers a system for gathering data and distributing information about potential customers from online traffic. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: SMS GupShup

SMS GupShup is a social messaging platform launched in 2004, at a time when SMS was only used for person-to-person (P2P) messaging and content players were selling ringtones and wallpapers to mobile subscribers. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: NomaDesk

Today’s Deal radar focuses on NomaDesk, which is short for “nomadic software”, an on-demand service (SaaS) that allows business teams to secure, sync and share data with no limits. Headquartered in Belgium, NomaDesk was founded by Filip Tack in September 2004. At the time, the industry was on the rebound from the dot-com bust, which meant that there was little competition for the company. Further, according to Tack, the two comparables around that time, Xdrive (AOL) and iFolder (Novell) are no longer around. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: OrangeSoda

OrangeSoda provides small and mid-sized businesses with the technology required to carry out a successful online marketing campaign. The Utah-based company created a service platform that aims to help SMBs navigate the complexities of search engine marketing, thus making it easier for them to grow. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: DubMeNow

DubMeNow is a mobile application for exchanging business cards and instantaneously managing contact information. Founder Manoj Ramnani came up with the idea on a flight from Washington, DC to Seattle. He had collected over 30 business cards and began entering all of them in Outlook. He was halfway into the task when his laptop’s battery died, and he thought that there must be a better solution to business card exchange and management problems. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: IngBoo

IngBoois a web start-up that provides consumers with a simple, free way to organize their ‘Web activities’ in one place. These activities can range from reading news from multiple sources, finding a job on different job sites, tracking deals on Craigslist, monitoring searches on Google and YouTube or getting Twitter and Facebook updates. Users can see all of this in one place, called the ‘IngBoo List’. The service is available on the Web, mobiles and via email. New channels such as Facebook and native RIMM app will be available in the third quarter of this year. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: socialDeck

Established in January 2008, socialDeck was founded with the vision of enabling “anywhere, anyone, anytime” gaming – enabling players to consume their games wherever, whenever, and with whomever they seem fit. Founders Anish Acharya and Jeson Patel left their respective positions at Amazon.com and Microsoft to fulfill their ambition of starting a technology company. >>>

Deal Radar 2009: ChalkPad Technologies

We continue our series on Indian companies in the education sector. The company featured today, ChalkPad Technologies, is a provider of education enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to schools, colleges and universities. It is also a consultancy on how to leverage IT in an educational setting. >>>