Of all the presentations that I have seen and read through from this years TechCrunch 50, this is the one that I would invest in if I was a VC. It addresses a very common problem that I have faced multiple times, and creates a simple solution that is very verstile in application. This is an easy way to create an interactive, taggable, portable chart that can be shared in blogs, PDFs, presentations, etc. This product will appeal not only to techies, but to business people and students as well. TechCrunch description:
iCharts makes interactive charting simple. http://www.icharts.net is the portal where everyone can search and share charts. Integrated into the portal is iCharts Studio which allows anyone to create high quality, interactive charts (iCharts) within minutes for private use or for publishing. Every iChart comes with a host of interactive features such as audio comments, data value pop-ups, zoom in/out and show/hide data series. iCharts can be embedded into any web-site where they can be updated by simply uploading new data to icharts.net. As a path breaking feature, iCharts can be embedded offline into PDF documents while retaining their full interactivity. iCharts contain rich tags making them highly searchable through existing search engines in an unprecedented way. iCharts is for publishing houses and market researchers, for academia, scientists, for business professionals and for every individual working with charts. iCharts is built on a combination of Adobe Flex and search-engine friendly JSP/HTML.
Although they haven’t completely solidified their business model, there are multiple ways to monetize this idea. In my opinion, the 2 biggest will be:
- Advertising – When enough traffic is drawn, which I believe will be very likely by the coveted financial and business analyst community if marketed properly, then advertising reveues will steadily grow.
- Licensing – This will be the cash cow. With proper marketing, plenty of businesses (including web-based) will have a great use for interactive and easy to create charting tools. This was Mark Cuban’s advice to them, what a great idea.
Here is their demo at the 2008 TechCrunch 50:
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Sources:
http://www.icharts.net/
http://www.techcrunch50.com/2008/conference/presenter.php?presenter=69#video
IdeaFLITE 