We are continuing to see some really useful stuff being hacked together after we released an unrestricted API for the startup data we’ve gathered on CrunchBase. Last month we wrote about some of our favorite applications using the API.
A couple of days ago blogger/venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote about some of the things he’d like to be able to do on his mobile phone that he can’t do today. Among them was this: “Twitter or sms bot for Crunchbase – When I hear about a company, I want to send the name of the company via twitter or sms to crunchbase and get a link back to a the entry on it.”
There was an immediate response in the comments with solutions. A Twitter-bot to return CrunchBase info. Sean Maurik from Cascada Mobile created a mobile app that works on a bunch of phones to get CrunchBase data. A SMS interface was also created.
The most usable interface was created by Russell Beattie on Textmarks. Joe Lazarus made it even more useful.
Bottom line, to get data from CrunchBase via SMS, send a text message to 41411. “CBASE digg” returns the contact information for Digg (or whatever term you enter). “cbsms tumblr” returns a link to the top search result for Tumblr. You can also enter in product names, people, etc.
By the way, one of the other things Fred requested in his post was a way to handshake two mobile phones and share contact info. A decade ago we could do this with the Palm V. I can’t wait to do the same with my iPhone.
Mike
Crunchbase is an amazing resource for us. I’ve been thinking we could build our deal log on top of it. I don’t know if the API is 2-way, but when we see a deal that is in Crunchbase, we use the record you’ve created. When we see a deal that’s not yet in Crunchbase, we create a record.
We haven’t decided to do that, but it’s an intriguing idea.
Fred
so far the API has no write functionality, it’s read only. Write functionality is on the dev schedule, not sure when it will be done but soon. So for now we can’t take the data in an automated way. When we can it would be great to discuss.
Might want to have a look at http://www.mydropcard.com for sharing contact info using 41411
Not a virtual iPhone handshake application, but very useful/simple tool to send ur info to a new contact via SMS.
What Fred Wilson wants, Fred Wilson gets.
“By the way, one of the other things Fred requested in his post was a way to handshake two mobile phones and share contact info.”
Scan your business card as a jpeg, put it on your cell phone, then use bluetooth. You can even do that on a really cheap cell phone.
A really cool app would constantly scan every blue tooth device in the area, and continuously push your business card to every single person who walks by. I may make that.
Not sure whether this service is available outside U.S. or not ?
I don’t think so…
I know it’s not exactly the same, but just chacha the company name and they’ll send you what you need to know in a jam. Ask for a link and they’ll do it, too.
i thought i saw a handshake app a few months ago in part of the iphone buzz. youd hold two phones next to each other and actually shake them.
All the twitter / SMS integration looks fantastic. And the greatest part is — I didn’t have to do any of the work. Man, it’s great to have an API.
quit writing comments and start working on the write functionality, you lazy bastard.
Yeah
Working for you must be really fulfilling. Hey Henry, sue Mike for being such an ass, get rich and start your own company. This is a form of modern slavery and you deserve much better
Meanwhile keep up the great work, both of you.
Have success
Christian Nussbaumer
Fribourg, Switzerland
Http://twitter.com/nussbi
Funny… I didn’t realize there was a Crunchbase API when I set this up. I’m acutally using Yahoo! Search to find the relevant result for the SMS search feature and Yahoo! Pipes / Textmarks to pull it all together. It was surprisingly easy to create. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes from reading Fred’s post to having it up and running… and I don’t even know how to program. I’m a marketing / product guy, not a developer.
I’ll definitely check out the API, though, now that I know you have one. Crunchbase is a great resource.
SMS integration is always good though.
Love the crunchbase via SMS app – it’s awesome to see the rapid explosion of SMS-interfaced applications in the US in the past couple of years. And to think, it was only in the last little while that interoperable SMS and business-friendly short code policies made these third-party apps possible.
That’s why we developed the original mobile lead generation and management tool, rmbrME. It lets you send your socially-networked business card via SMS *from* any device *to* any device without downloads, installs or subscriptions. It’s like a business card on steroids, and makes a great companion or replacement for paper cards.
More about us at http://rmbrme.com/ (and you can catch a little VentureBeat writeup of our beta at http://tinyurl.com/rmbrme-vb)
That is a feature, not a business. Plaxo or any other ‘contact player’ can implement this quite easily and the game is over.
Robert Scoble (I think it was him) earlier posted about a site called rmbrME.com where you simple sign up, add your info and then when you meet someone one of you can text the others phone number to a shortcode and instantly you exchange contact info. It is not as thorough as a way to exchange contact info via cross platform data sync but I think that this method is still very useful and might help out with addressing the other part of the post that initiated this Crunchbase via SMS post.
SMS integration vry good though
Okay, i was wrong, it was not Robert Scoble who talked about it, it was Russell Beattie, sorry my mistake there.
Tagga has a “Send to Mobile” widget that publishers can embed into their content for free SMS delivery to anywhere in the world.
This is a great example of the type of apps TextMarks can empower, with very little integration work and no cost to the developer. Please feel free to stop by and check out our friendly Developer Center, where you can see just how easy it is to integrate SMS into your apps.
http://www.textmarks.com/dev/ – TextMarks Developer Center
Dan Kamins
CTO TextMarks
+1 for TextMarks, we were able to turn around some very quick SMS-based apps using it. Clickatell also has something similar, although with fewer features, and DotGO is an option if you want to go ad-free.