Fast Fig: Startup of the Month

fastfigstartupofthemonth

This month’s featured startup has an idea that I’m surprised we haven’t seen executed until now. The company is fast fig, and the product is a cloud-based math word processor. They’ve basically applied the Google docs model to math, making typing equations as simple as writing a sentence, and making math available anywhere.

Problems and equations automatically format, and literally solve themselves as you type, serving as a handy tool for checking work.

In its’ current state, applications are limited to math tests, problems, and other educational uses,  but I see a lot of potential in the technology they’ve already developed to do more than education.

If they build in the correct templates, I could see this having financial applications, family budgeting, and many other math applications. They’ve already built in features for engineers (who I can attest, need to deal with a lot of numbers- dimensions, costs, standard deviations, etc.) and the platform can definitely handle these other uses.

It could use a few more templates, but the technology already in place at Fast fig is pretty incredible, and I’d highly recommend giving it a try for yourself. It’s free to sign up, and you can check it out here.

SEE LAST MONTH’S STARTUP 

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Two Fascinating Technology Bloggers You May Not Know

Most of the time we try to keep people in-house, and on this site, but occasionally we have to share some of the other fantastic bloggers out there that you may be missing. These two guys are both experts, successful in the world of technology, and offer fantastic perspective on a variety of tech topics.

 

  • Minimally Minimal by Andrew Kim. Andrew Kim is a professional designer who has worked at various companies including Google, and Cisco. His design reimagination of Microsoft, conceived on his blog, was so good that they went out and hired him to join their design team. He’s a great photographer of minimalist designed technology, and his posts are really enjoyable.
  • Robert Pera is the young billionaire founder and CEO of a technology company called UBiquiTi (actually spelled that way). As a former product designer at Apple, and successful entrepreneur, his comments on design, technology, and business are very insightful, and definately worth checking out.

I hope their blogs bring you hours of enjoyment as they’ve brought me, as I hope my own will do the same for you.

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Boomtrain – Startup of the Month

 

Boomtrain videos online

The Interface

There are so many great startups out there that don’t get nearly the attention they deserve, because they simply don’t fit into my publishing schedule. I’m changing that, starting this month with our first ever Featured Startup of the month.

My video life is divided. I’ve got TV for news and organization, Hulu and Netflix for shows, and Youtube for short quick random videos. There’s so much great free content on Youtube, but it’s too much of a pain to find in the long term. Thankfully, a new startup has come along to try and master the show model for Youtube.

I recently started using the beta version of a new service called Boomtrain, and I think it has serious potential. Boomtrain categorizes shows available on Youtube and makes it really easy to watch it as you would a show on Netflix, and find similar shows as well.

There’s still a lot of work to be done adding content to their library of addable shows, but the basic concept is very sound. The interface is very simple and is far more optimized for watching shows than the standard Youtube layout. Everyone who’s read this blog for a while knows I have an extreme dislike of Youtube’s new interface, so as this platform is developed further I may shift more and more of my watching from Youtube.com to Boomtrain.

 

If you want to check it out for free, head to Boomtrain.com

 

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34 Blogging and Webmaster Resources

There are a ton of startups out there to help you with your business, or blog. Here’s a giant list of services that may interest you.

  1. Aweber: Popular Email marketing Solution
  2. Mailchimp: Also popular Email Marketing Solution- generous free plan
  3. Mixrank: “Spy” on your competitor’s marketing with this cool analytical app.
  4. Google Analytics: Professional Site Metrics program. completely free
  5. Lighthouse: issue tracking software
  6. Launchrock: Awesome launchpage maker.
  7. Qualaroo: Behavior analysis+AB testing= Psychological insane awesomeness.
  8. Optimizely: A,B testing service.
  9. Pingdom: Page Speed Analysis Tool and web monitoring
  10. Pagespeed: Another Page Speed grading tool.
  11. Hootsuite: Social Media Management Platform.
  12. Clicktale: Heatmap and Engagement analysis tool.
  13. Clue App: free Effectiveness and design Testing Tool.
  14. Studiopress: Premium, well made, wordpress themes.
  15. Grader: Free marketing analysis tool
  16. Tweetdeck: Social media management tool, and twitter client.
  17. Duckboard: Website dashboard. Monitoring area. Mission control.
  18. Mixpanel: Expensive Analytics tool.
  19. Gosquared: Enhanced Web analytics tool.
  20. Disqus Comments: Off-site managed commenting system.
  21. Polldaddy: Make polls, surveys, ratings, etc.
  22. Surveymonkey: Make polls, and surveys, and analyze your traffic.
  23. Alexa: Site ranker. Compare your site to others around the world.
  24. Pivotaltracker: Bug tracking tool.
  25. Open Site Explorer: Site and SEO analysis tool.
  26. CrazyEgg: The best heatmap tool out there.
  27. Nibbler Site Testing: Site quality scoring and analysis.
  28. Usabilla: User feedback tool.
  29. Five Second Test: Design testing tool.
  30. Recurly: Recurring Billing tool.
  31. Tender: Customer support system builder
  32. Wufoo: form builder
  33. Desk: fully featured Customer support system
  34. Google Webmaster Tools: SEO analysis directly from Google. Free and amazing.
  35. MaxCDN: Content delivery network for speeding up your site.

Got any suggestions? Leave it in the comments, and we’lll add it to the list. Enjoy these webmaster resources.

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