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June 16, 2011
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Startups vie for AT&T’s attention at new Innovation Center

By on June 16, 2011 at 1:45 PM.

Startups vie for AT&T’s attention at new Innovation Center

AT&T on Wednesday gave the world its first look at the telecommunications giant’s new International Innovation Center in Ra’anana, Israel. For the first time, Israeli press was granted access to AT&T’s newest incubator, which has been operational in a temporary facility since July last year. AT&T established the foundry — its second such facility — alongside Israeli tech company Amdocs, and the company describes the Innovation Center as a “collaborative environment where AT&T and technology providers work with start-ups and developers to get the latest innovations and services into the hands of AT&T customers more quickly than ever before.” Startups and developers with products deemed worthy of the program are granted a direct line to experts in their field and ultimately, perhaps, to millions of AT&T customers. “The AT&T Foundry network is a collaborative environment where AT&T researchers, key industry technology providers and developers from all over the world innovate in new ways,” said AT&T CTO John Donovan in a statement. “Project managers drive project development in 30- and 90-day sprints that allow us to cut the time required to evolve great ideas into products and services by two thirds.” AT&T’s full press release can be found below. More →

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Services
August 14, 2008
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TicketStumbler: Putting Aggregation to Good Use

By on August 14, 2008 at 12:53 PM.

TicketStumbler: Putting Aggregation to Good Use

In the world of Web 2.0, “aggregate” is the word of the month. It seems like 50 new services pop up every day trying to make a business out of aggregating data from other services. Some are mildly successful and a handful experience big success but most just flounder and flop. Why? Because trying to start a business based on other people’s web services is a tricky game. Among the companies that have found a terrific niche to which an aggregation model can be applied, is TicketStumber. This, people, is one of our new favorite sites. TicketStumbler is a tool for finding tickets to any and every sporting event you can think of (concert and theater events will be coming within the next few months). The site has a brilliantly simple and smooth UI, and lets you search or browse events by team, date, region and more. So why is it better than StubHub? Apart from being much more logical and therefore more usable, TicketStumbler does not sell tickets nor do its users. The site pulls in ticket listings from a variety of sources such as StubHub, RazorGator, Empire Tickets and Ticket City, and lists everything on one clean page. Check out what’s available along with prices, compare listings with the on-page seating charts and then choose the tickets you want. Once you click the purchase button you will be forwarded right to the appropriate vendor page. Not hassle, no fuss. Beyond form and function, perhaps the best part about this service is the founders. This Y Combinator-funded team is very, very responsive and thrives on feedback. Case in point: v1 did not include seating charts which made for a bunch of back-and-forth as users looking to compare seat placement as opposed to just prices. They received some feedback to this extent and update the site include seating charts. How long did it take them to respond and implement the changes? Two days. No that’s customer service…

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