I saw this new way of typing first hand at the TechCrunch 50 held last year. Most Impressive Demos At TechCrunch50 Day2: Swype and Postbox, Swype is now launching the first phone with its Swyping touch screen technology on a Samsung phone called the Omnia II. Check out the amazing video below that puts the Swype technology to work verses an iPhone.

OK Solos, so how could we use this type of technology in our business. My thoughts are if we can type faster with one hand on our cell phones we can get more things done, hence we can be more productive. My good friend Peggy Duncan did a blog post  7 Must-Have Gadgets I Use to Make Work Easier where she list all the gadgets that make her work life easier. This Swyping technology would be on my list to do the same thing.

Here is one way I could see this technology working is with mothers with infant children.  I was in total amazement on how my wife was able to type on a computer keyboard with one hand while nursing our young daughter. Think of how more productive she could  have been if Swype would develop a desktop keyboard that would allow her to type much faster and with more accuracy.

Can you think of other ways this technology could help or hurt Solopreneurs in being more productive? Please share them in commenting below.

All the best

JB

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Day 3 of TechCrunch50 demos had a lot more gamer presentations then the other 2 days.  I am not a gamer but I do respect what they bring to the Web 2.0 table. I want to congratulate Yammer for winning the grand prize. I picked them out as one of the most impressive on the very first day Most Impressed Demos At TechCrunch50 Day1: Angstro, OtherInbox and Yammer

Dropbox is the easiest way to store and share files in the cloud, combining online sync, sharing and backup into a single interface that’s seamlessly integrated into your operating system. It’s the only truly cross-platform cloud storage solution, with support for Windows, Mac OS X and now Linux. Files in your Dropbox folder are continuously kept in sync between your computers and securely backed up online, eliminating the headaches associated with emailing yourself attachments or carrying USB drives. Folders in your Dropbox can also be shared with others, leading many businesses to abandon traditional network drives and VPNs and collaborate using Dropbox shared folders instead. Our beta users love that Dropbox just works and doesn’t make you think, and our March screencast ranks among the top links of the year on Digg (11,000+ diggs.) Dropbox is backed by Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator and was founded by a team of MIT engineers.

I installed their software and was up and running within 10 minutes with all 3 of my computers sharing a Dropbox folder. I tested placing a file and an image into the Dropbox folder on one of my computers only to see the same file and image on my other two computers Dropbox folder within seconds. My only complaint is that they limit you to 2 gigs of space for Free and they don’t currently have a price plan for additional space.

All in all I have to give kudos to the organizers of this years TechCrunch50. I wish all of the companies that participated luck and look forward to being there in person next year.

All the best

JB

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I think that the TechCrunch50 can just stop the contest now after seeing the demo of Swype.
I new way of inputting data to any device. How cool is this technology. Day two was slow but ended strong. You have to see this demo.

Swype creates text input technology for screens. The patented interface enables users to create words with one continuous finger motion across an on-screen keyboard. This approach provides a faster and easier way to write. Swype delivers single-tap, multi-tap, predictive and “swype” motions for both stylus and finger based input. In addition, the application is designed to work across a variety of devices such as phones, tablets, game consoles, kiosks, televisions, virtual screens and more. Seattle based Swype Inc. was founded by Cliff Kushler and Randy Marsden in 2003. Cliff is the co-inventor of T9, the standard predictive text-entry solution used on almost 3 billion mobile phones worldwide. Randy is the developer of the onscreen keyboard included in Windows, with an installed base of over 500 million units.

A new desktop email application, Postbox™ helps users spend less time managing email and more time using email to get things done. Powered by the Mozilla platform, Postbox automatically detects, analyzes and catalogs all types of content, letting users seamlessly find, organize and act upon text, images, URLs, addresses and more hidden deep within their mail store. Since found data is displayed in context it can be easily repurposed in new messages or web searches, or even shared online—all from within Postbox. Simple tagging features let users organize messages the way they want and then focus on one project at a time without missing out on important new messages. Users can also gather messages by conversation, annotate messages and create to-do items that appear in mailbox windows. Postbox, Inc. was founded by Sherman Dickman and Scott MacGregor in December of 2007, and is based in San Francisco, California.

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Unfortunately I could not attend this years TechCrunch50 but I watched a good amount of the conference on Ustream.tv. I have posted the video demos of the three companies that impressed me the most on day one.

Angstro delivers critical business news about people and companies across professional networks. By leveraging existing services such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, Angstro helps users to easily discover and share news about colleagues and clients. Unlike clipping services that confuse different people with the same name, Angstro both disambiguates names and analyzes social graphs to prioritize those relationships that matter most. Founded in 2007 by serial entrepreneurs with decades of experience developing real-time notification solutions, Angstro is located in Palo Alto, California.

OtherInbox is a new way to manage email overload. You probably have an “other inbox” already, and it’s probably a Yahoo or Gmail account that you give out because you don’t want receipts, newsletters and social networking notifications to clutter your main email. OtherInbox introduces a clever twist. Instead of just having a single email address such as johnsmith23@gmail.com, each user gets assigned their own domain name such as johnsmith.otherinbox.com or a vanity domain like johnsmith.com. Any address @johnsmith.com goes to your OtherInbox, so you can easily give a different email address to every website. For instance, Amazon gets amazon@johnsmith.com and Facebook gets facebook@johnsmith.com. Without having to set up any folders or rules, your email gets organized so that it’s easy to jump right to the messages you care about. If a website sells your email address to spammers, you’ll be able to tell and can BLOCK it with a single click.

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?” As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced. Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. The basic Yammer service is free. Companies can pay to claim and administer their network.

If I had to pick just one winner for the day that most impressed me it would be Yammer.com. Even though this application is slated for Enterprise use and not for Solopreneurs I truly liked the Twitter like functionality and its ease of setup. If you are familiar with Twitter and would like to exclusively communicate with other employees in your organization the same way then Yammer is for you.

All you need is access to your corporate email address to sign up. You can then invite other employees with the same corporate email address. Once invited your invitees are ready to answer the question “What are you working on”, build their profile page and then commence to Yammering. Its that simple. If you don’t get your confirmation email right away give a Tweet to http://twitter.com/yammer_team and they will help you immediately.

All the best

JB

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