The second TECH cocktail rocked Chicago on October 12 at the Gramercy. TECH cocktail – highlighted previously on TechCrunch – is a quarterly event co-hosted by Eric Olson and Frank Gruber that focuses on better connecting the local technology community. The second event attracted more than 350 guests: a mix of bloggers, podcasters, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, developers and tech enthusiasts. Vonage founder Jeff Pulver even dropped in from New York for a guest appearance. Photos from the event can be found here.
The event was captured on video by Liquid Talk, a Chicago-based startup focusing on enterprise podcasting solutions, which filmed event attendee testimonials (coming soon). Liquid Talk creates podcasts for large corporations to update employees with the latest company information. Technology Evangelist and Stone Cliff Productions also filmed interviews which should be out soon. Limousines were provided by midPhase hosting to give guests a classy way to get home, but according to Chicagoist there were so many limos that one was even reported stolen!
A number of established companies and startups showcased demonstrations:
eSigma, founded by Troy Haaland, offers one of the first standards-based consortium for publishing, consuming and managing Web Service-based business processes. Businesses that are looking to develop online products can leverage common elements, thus saving them time and money since they will not have to re-invent the wheel.
GrubHub is a Chicago-based free restaurant search engine developed by Mike Evans and Matt Maloney. GrubHub currently allows users to search for restaurants in Chicago, New York, Milwaukee and San Francisco with plans to expand to more cities soon. The site enables users to enter an address and then GrubHub returns restaurants that deliver to that address. Once a restaurant is selected GrubHub displays a menu, reviews, and coupons and even lets you create an account and place a food order online.
Pawky is an online video site for short film enthusiasts. It is about a year and half old and looks to grow short film content on the web. The selection of short films is currently in the hundreds and growing every day. The site also offers some web 2.0 social hooks which include film rating and comments. The most interesting or best-rated films are often bubbled to the top like the animated film Dealing with Women or the timely Life and Death of a Pumpkin. Since the short films are independent and user-contributed they do not have the same types of copyright issues that similar video sites might encounter.
Planypus, a product of Fifteen Reasons, a Chicago-based startup, makes planning a get together easy. Planypus works by notifying your friends by email, SMS text messaging, syndication feed (RSS) or by integrating into your online personalized homepage. Planypus has implemented tagging to allow for easier findablity of events or friends. Planypus sports a “My City” tab which suggests a number of local events and venues to help spark the planning process. In addition, Planypus enables user to organize a number of friends by creating groups. Planypus is soon to have a mobile version which will enable users to text to see plans, make plans, RSVP and make comments.
Time59 is a web-based timekeeping and invoicing product developed by Chris Monaghan, a Chicago tech developer with more than 20 years of experience. Time59 allows its users to create and manage multiple projects with various hourly rates, generate invoices and integrates with other third party applications like QuickBooks.
A few other startups did not demo but deserve a quick mention:
FitLink.com, founded by Jason Borro is a social network of people that want to get fit. It offers tools to help you get motivated connect with people tied into the health scene. For example, FitLink helps trainers connect with new clients, local gyms to find new members and local fitness groups to get their message out. FitLink’s business model revolves around selling premium services to health clubs.
HouseBlogs.net is a community-powered home improvement publication that allows users to blog about their home and home improvement projects. If you enjoy numerous weekend trips to Home Depot then this could be the site for you. HouseBlogs.net was started by Aaron and Jeanne Olson last year and was recently named one of the best real estate websites by Money Magazine. The site stemmed from blogging success in authoring House in Progress, a blog about living in a 1914 Craftsman-style bungalow in Chicago. It’s amazing the power of blogs these days. J
Menuism is a product with the slogan: “rate what you ate.” It’s similar to GrubHub and carries the restaurant theme as a mashup of open user-contributed restaurants, reviews, maps and menus. It also has a social network feel. Menuism was developed by Justin Chen and John Li, two UC Berkely engineers, as part of their company Two-Bit Operation and currently supports all US cities. Finally on a lighter note, Menuism has an orange mascot named Foodha who enjoys all kinds of foods and meditating on picturesque waterfronts, to guide users through the Menuism experience.
Metroproper, founded by Phil Tadros, is a social network for business or personal profiles with citizen journalism in cities around the world. MetroProper also acts as the parent site to the 400 localized metropolitan area community subsites – sort of like a local MySpace. Each site features blogging, RSS feeds, buddy lists, forums, event listings, real-time online status awareness, e-mail, instant messaging, classified ads, photos, tagging and bookmarking. The goal of Metroproper is to give individuals and small business tools to create a professional online presence. Metroproper had a pre-launch party in July but the site is set to officially launch soon.
Bottom-line: TECH cocktail 2 rocked an otherwise quiet Thursday evening in Chicago!
Congratulations Eric and Frank. Sounds like another great event.
A lot of rehash of old ideas
Alaska, there is no such thing as a new idea.
Thanks for the mention. Great job organizing TechCocktail – it was a blast! We can’t wait for the next one. It’s great to see so much tech activity in the midwest.
Tech cocktail 2 was a blast. I already can’t wait for the next one.
-Jeff O’Hara
http://blog.zemote.com
I don’t get it. Frank Gruber praises an event put on by Frank Gruber. Then, on Frank Gruber’s own blog, he says ‘TECH cocktail got some more TechCrunch loving’. Yeah, some more TechCrunch loving from Frank Gruber. Sheesh.
Ivan,
I was at the event and Frank and Eric did a wonderful job. Mike Arrington was not able to come out to the event so Frank (who has contributed to TechCrunch in the past) was able to cover it for him. Unfortunately, Frank had to report to TechCrunch what he saw. I just checked out Frank’s post on his personal blog Somewhat Frank and I thought that image was pretty funny. Apparently you didn’t pick up on the sarcasm.
TechCocktail2 was a wonderful way to bring all of us together. I was also at the event and am glad I didn’t miss it. I’ve known Frank Gruber for a long time and have seen his keen sense of humor that allows him to talk candidly about the event he sponsored — if you watch the video you would see some funny moments. “TechCrunch loving” was very clever.
Hey Ivan,
I co-founded Tech Cocktail with Frank and can tell you he felt a little strange about covering our own event on TechCrunch but our intent when starting the event was to spread the word about what is happening in the midwest. What better way to spread the word then on TechCrunch and, with Mike not being able to attend, Frank was the man in terms of covering the event which just happened to be his own (Frank has written for TechCrunch before as well). The humor was definitely there in his post about the event as well as we did know it was weird for him to write an article about Tech Cocktail. Anyhow, I hope you were able to learn more about some companies from the midwest that you wouldn’t have heard about before and that you may come out to Chicago for the next event. Perhaps next time we can get someone else to write the event up for us. Anyone interested?
What a wonderful!
Tech Cocktail is such a good thing for Chicago..
Props’ to the folks who produced it .. and ..
hey thanks for talking about metroproper =)
The event was great according to my team (sorry, I couldn’t make it). Thanks for having Planypus there! Frank & Eric are really helping the Chicago tech community become a real startup hub!
Having been at both TechCocktails I would be happy to write an article for techcrunch — or anyone else — about TechCocktail3. Frank has known me a long time and would “vouch” for me. Getting the word out on techcocktail1/2/or 3 is the important thing here so the event keeps happening in Chicago. Let’s keep the momentum going
We at FitLink.com enjoyed TechCocktail and appreciate Frank and Eric’s efforts to spread the word about Chicago startups. It is invaluable for new companies without significant resources to network and get mentioned on blogs like TechCrunch.
Was great meeting everyone at TC2, looking forward to #3!
I guess it was a good event, from what I could tell. I showed up about 30 minutes after it was officially over and the placed was a mess.
Must have been good – I’m not sure that I would endure another 7-hour flight delay to attend the next event, especially after it took me another 22 hours to get back home to Kansas City, Missouri the next day.
All in all, it was good to see Chicago again, and it was good getting to speak with some of the guys at an after-party party.
I was at TechCocktail 2 and had a good time. I was glad to see how packed and popular this event is becoming. I got a chance to see and chat with some of the startup reps, all were very informative. I look forward to the next one. I just saw the video on YouTube – looks great. Awesome job overall for the entire event.
I was at Techcoctail 1, but was unable to come to 2. I heard it was awesome with a great turnout and a great crowd. Thanks for mentioning Planypus. Kudos to Frank and Eric for throwing this together!
Wow. Thanks for mentioning Houseblogs. I wasn’t able to make it but Aaron was. Sounds like it was hella fun.