Following Australian Startups and Tech Trends

Today we showcase an exciting and interesting startup from Melbourne, Australia, 2Vouch - a social recruiting site that helps employers and recruiters find hard-to-reach people. It was founded by Riges Younan. I further explored 2Vouch and how Riges is progressing with his venture in a candid interview with him. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I am currently the founder and CEO of 2Vouch a Social Recruiting site. I have over 12 years of professional executive search and recruiting experience gained in Sydney, Melbourne, London and New York. I have been responsible for the successful launch of five start-up recruiting offices for various firms as well as the development and deployment of sophisticated sourcing techniques & processes that lead to superior results for clients. I bring deep industry knowledge and extensive sales, marketing and management experience to 2Vouch. • What is the name of your venture/company? 2Vouch...

The 25th participant is The Fame Experiment Founded By Mark Schumann in 2008, The Fame Experiment , was developed to investigate the answer to one simple question, Can the internet be used to generate enough exposure for one person to experience public recognition? It works on the idea that one person if seen over and over again in a multitude of places, could experience public recognition, or become famous . The aim is for this person's image to be everywhere, and for that image to become embedded in Internet users' thoughts so that to see this person in public will trigger an I know you moment. Mark describes , that there are two phases: Phase 1: is about getting the word out about the Fame Experiment. If users have a website, a blog, post on forums, or even email others, it is easy for them to participate. By selecting the Earn Fame Points link after logging in, they will be given a choice of special code that can be placed on their website, blog, forum or email signatu...

The 23rd participant is 3eep 3eep - is a social media enterprise. It delivers technology and commercial services to clients who want to establish their own social media businesses and create social networks in their communities. 3eep’s focus is on local sports communities. Let us learn more about 3eep and the people behind it: • Who are the founders behind this and how it started? Who are the founders behind this and how it started. The founders of 3eep are Rob Antulov, CEO, who was the former head of strategy at Fairfax, and Nick Gonios, COO and Head of Community Development, who has spent time with HotHouse Interactive, Microsoft and Fujitsu. • How long it took before it was up and running? From our initial thoughts about building a sports-oriented social network to launching our first beta version took about six months. We launched our partner Platform product within 4 months of that. • What stage of your start-up is, stealth mode, beta mode or fully functional? 3eep is still in...

The 20th participant is Community Enabler Founded by Rob Anderson, Community Enabler , trading under the banner of Cagora.com which is the flagship website , is a project tentatively called the Social Networking Challenge which will launch in March 2008. It is a Social Enterprise that is setting out to do its bit to make the world a better place by fostering Community Building and empowering Business Entrepreneurs and Social Entrepreneurs to achieve their goals. It is run as a Profit Business, but will be launching Not For Profit initiatives such as The Social Networking Challenge which is designed to create a word-of-mouth Tipping Point harnessing the viral connectivity of the Blogosphere and major Social Networks such as Facebook and MySpace. Rob describes the service in his words: It has a shortcut way for people to browse and search the Social Networks for People and Groups. The same interface to enable people to browse on one page thousands of Bloggers, Podcasters and Videocaste...

The 19th participant is Confer Founded by Rod L'Huillier Confer - is a social news-sharing site especially aimed at an Australian audience providing a platform for content recommendation and news sharing. The content is completely community-driven via member submissions of links to blog posts, news stories or even videos that they have found interesting. Members can also vote on submissions to democratically determine the front-page news and most popular content. The site also allows for discussion of submissions and members also have their own personal profile page with networking features. It aims to be a platform for sharing discovery and engagement in Australian content, particularly from the Aussie blogosphere, and for localised discussion of news and issues be they global or local. Confer in short: Social News Sharing - Content Recommendation Content discovery via community contribution Discussion - Have your say on local issues Collaborative filtering via voting Independen...

The 18th participant is ZaaBiz ZaaBiz - is an online social networking site for professionals. It connects Australian’s in business with other professionals in Australia and beyond. Michael Brecht is the founder and CEO of ZaaBiz. Michael has lived in Australia for four years and saw a niche for an online social network that was geared towards Australians. Let us explore a bit further about ZaaBiz. We asked a few questions and this is what Michael has to say: Q. How long before it was up and running? A. 6 months Q. What stage is your company at? A. Fully- functioning networking site for professionals. Q. What is the main objective behind your venture? A. The main objective is to be the leading & profitable social networking platform for business professionals in Australia and beyond. Q. What services does it provide for customers/ consumers? A. Groups, Forums, Articles, Newsletters, Advanced Search & Power Search, finding new business connections and more Web 2.0 application...

The 14th participant is Uvouch Uvouch is a social medium to share your passions with the world; from business to politics, music to sports, movies to travel and a lot more. Users can create their own fan communities within seconds and save any type of media in one place. It provides users easy-to-use tools to add videos, links, polls, articles, blogs, RSS, music, playlists and unlimited text modules to their clubs. Uvouch offers global media search functionality by connecting to the top 10 media websites including YouTube, google, yahoo etc. Videos can be simply viewed and added to accounts and fan clubs with one simple click Users can easily create playlists of their favorites, organize their video clips collection and fully customize their channels. Uvouch.com also allows users to bookmark their favourite links, websites, and clipping/annotation from a particular webpage for future reference. Parveen Panwar is the founder of Uvouch. Let us learn more about Uvouch from him: Q How it...

The tenth participant is Buzka Buzka has taken the first steps to build powerful web applications that introduce new ways for consumers to search and discover the highly relevant brand-focused information they need to make purchasing decisions. Buzka Popnets are patented web applications that harness the power of social networking for businesses that need to build brand value in today’s fragmented media environment. Available to businesses of all sizes, Popnets make it extremely easy for their customers to share all the information they need when making everyday buying decisions, whilst providing easy access to their most trusted source of product referral – their social network. Based out of Perth (WA), Buzka was co-founded by Raphe Patmore and Jinnan Cai in January 2006. Let us explore a bit further how Raphe and Jinnan are progressing with Buzka. Q. Who are the founders behind this and how it started? A. Raphe Patmore CEO (Co-Founder) - has over 25 years of experience in techno...