Last night Stamford Tech Meetup #5 took place. We had a relatively small turnout but nonetheless the passion was there.
We had three presenters last night:
Gabble On, Tooble TA, and Cmp.ly (pronounced Comply as in compliance).
Gabble On is a language learning tool which takes traditional language tools like Google Translate, Babblefish, etc and makes them into a usable and learnable format. There's an iPhone application that allows students to take words that they've learned and turn them into flash cards. Pretty cool b2b application and pretty amazing given that Ethan's been working on this alone.
Tooble TA is another education tool which helps teachers figure out how their students learn. They are able to upload multimedia to their online lesson manager and see what pieces of media each student responds to. Matt, the CEO, a recent MBA graduate from Yale, explained that while technology has moved so quickly education is still in the 1800's. Makes sense.
Finally Cmp.ly is a very interesting take on what is happening out there in the marketplace. The company helps other companies in disclosing how marketers were compensated if at all. They also have a URL shortening service which allows me to determine what level of compensation the marketer is receiving. Thus if I tweet out a link to say an Amazon book, it would be a Comply 6 link that means that I have an affiliate relationship with Amazon. Tom, the founder, mentions an episode where Ann Taylor gave away gift cards and would only activate them upon receipt of a blog post mentioning the company. Interesting stuff! Cmp.ly Disclosure - I have no financial involvement in any of these companies.
So then the voting came and it was close with Cmp.ly out to an early lead. At one point there was a three way tie. Then Tooble came back strong and in the end we had to vote again. Cmp.ly vs Tooble. Voting resumed and there again was a tie. Unprecedented! I decided to award them the joint crown for Stamford Tech Meetup #5. Congratulations.
