Announcing Dogpatch Labs San Francisco Roster

We are excited to announce the newest Dogpatch Labs class here in San Francisco. It includes entrepreneurs and companies that have been part of the lab over the last few months and those that just recently joined (new additions: AdCru, Animoto, Burbn, FanPop, JibJab, LearnBoost, Milennial Media, Recruly, StickyBits, Task Rabbit and Wild Pockets). As always, we look for great, exciting entrepreneurs who thrive in open and collaborative environments. And we aim to have a diverse collection of individuals, companies and verticals. The current batch of residents certainly represents that! You can view the TechCrunch write up here and rosters of all three Dogpatch Labs here.

Dogpatch San Francisco

AdCru is a pay-per-follower ad network for Twitter founded in September 2009.


Animoto (San Francisco) generates custom, professional-looking slideshows from user-uploaded music and photos. Their “patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology and high-end motion design” drives the web app. (TechCrunch coverage)
Burbn is a new way to communicate + share in the real world. (TechCrunch coverage)
Cardpool is a gift card exchange service where anyone can buy, sell, or trade their gift cards in a safe and secure environment. (TechCrunch coverage)
EGG HAUS is an interactive agency. We help our clients create and deploy engaging branded experiences on every consumer platform.
FanPop is a network of user-generated fan clubs for different topics of interest created and maintained by the community of fans.
FanPulse welcomes you to your world of sports. FanPulse (launching January 2010) is a new sports-service that lets you easily follow the sports you love and talk about them with your real friends. (TechCrunch coverage)
Formative Labs - working on ideas that solve problems and change consumer behaviors.
Formspring: Ask questions, give answers and learn more about your friends. (TechCrunch coverage)
Hollrr - Want to help your friends discover a great new product? A quick Hollrr is the easiest way to let them know what deserves a shout out. (TechCrunch coverage)
JibJab (San Francisco): Headquartered in Santa Monica and founded by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, and backed by Polaris, JibJab is a leading e-Card business. (TechCrunch coverage)
LearnBoost is an education platform for secondary schools.
Millennial Media delivers the largest reach – 83% of the US mobile audience – through the largest mobile advertising network in the US. (TechCrunch coverage)
Mr. Tweet looks through your extended network to help you find effective relationships and information most relevant to yourself.
ProfessionL centralizes all your recruitment management needs into one unified web-based software application that can be used by any business that recruits (including recruitment specialists).
Recurly makes subscription billing easy for developers and organizations of all sizes.. (TechCrunch coverage)
The Start Project - turning ideas into action. (TechCrunch coverage)
Stickybits brings the physical and digital worlds together with barcode stickers which trigger audio, video, photo, and text messages when scanned. (TechCrunch coverage)
startupSQUARE is a marketplace where entrepreneurs can meet one another and brainstorm their next big business idea.
TaskRabbit(formerly runmyerrand.com) helps individuals and small businesses in a community outsource their tasks and deliveries, leveraging the latest technology and the social networking paradigm.
Trazzler helps you answer one question, "Where should I go?" by recommending trips unique to your location and Travel Personality.
Twylah: your personal assistant on twitter.
Wild Pockets is an end to end solution that supports creators throughout the life cycle of 3D game development
Yardsellr - In the tradition of neighborhood garage- and yard-sales, Yardsellr makes it easy for you to list and sell, or find and buy whatever you want. Yardsellr helps spread the word about your item within your online "neighborhood" – social and messaging networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Dogpatch Labs Video Tour on VentureBeat

Earlier this week, Dogpatch Labs was featured on VentureBeat. Assistant Editor Anthony Ha visited Dogpatch Labs San Francisco, met several of the entrepreneurs / teams, and sat down for an short tour and interview. In the video, I am joined by David Hegarty of Hollrr:

After the article went live, it managed to become a "Popular" article on Digg and reach the homepage:

Busy Two Weeks of Dogpatch Labs Launches

A very busy, productive week for Dogpatch Labs residents across the various locations. In the last few days, fivecompanies have gotten great coverage for their launching products: - Hollrr (San Francisco): Hollrr Takes Foursquare’s Badge Strategy, Pins It To Social Product Discovery - Cardpool (San Francisco): CardPool Wants To Buy And Sell Your Unused Gift Cards

- FanPulse (San Francisco): Trash Talk With Friends With FanPulse

- ScoopStreet (New York): Group Buying, Better Together

- GoodCrush (New York): Googlers Can Finally Find Their Parisian Love with GoogleCrush

Facebook Connect: It's More Than a Sign-On Tool

As Mike Hirshland wrote, "last night was a truly epic evening at Dogpatch Labs". Alongside Facebook, we hosted 150 people at Dogpatch Labs San Francisco to discuss Facebook Connect and demo their implementations and best practices. Over 50 companies were represented and we had teams fought the bad weather to arrive from New York, LA, DC, Montreal, Boston, etc. The event was epic in part because the demos were diverse and terrific - but it was also epic because ten minutes before the first presentation was slated to go - there was a major power outage across SOMA... leaving 150 of us standing in the dark. After maneuvering our way through the obstacles, we arrived at the Four Seasons conference room and dove right in.

Mike has several takeaways on his blog - and we will do our best to distribute attendee feedback as well, but here are my three major takeaways:

1. Facebook Connect is not a login system. It is much more.

The best Facebook Connect implementations go beyond the login. They must give the user a reason to interact and provide value after the login - and with Connect, the content and data go far beyond registration: photos, birthdays, social graph, etc. JibJab and Personera are terrific examples: by logging in through Facebook Connect, you are enabling a better, more social site experience. 2. Think about your users, not about pageviews or actions.

If you think about the value you are trying to deliver through Facebook Connect, you will construct an experience that encourages and fosters virality. If you think of Connect as a way to drive pageviews or feed posts, you can end up missing the most important factor: ongoing engagement.

3. Test. Iterate. Test. Iterate. Test. Iterate.

You would be amazed at how small tweaks in language, style, color, etc create very significant changes. KISSmetrics gave an outstanding presentation here and folks like Hollrr showed the impact of recent design changes.

Art Chang, a Dogpatch Labs resident and phenomenal photographer, has several great photos of the event. Two of which are below: