Startups Headed for Roundup

It is about time for another edition of "Where are they now?" So, let's see where some of the prime and not-so prime startup cuts are now. The roundups are getting more and more selective and contentious as one promising startup after another loses ground to still competition.

Every time we do a visitation on cool startups I hope to find something striking and innovative to report on. Based on several of our roundups and those on other blogs, it is apparent that there is a reason we have not heard much about some of these offerings. In some cases the reason is that there is nothing much happening. I hope the evident trend is wrong.

Bubbleply - The addition of version 1.76 has added clarity to the UI and several convenience features add to user experience. Bubbleply has been one of my favorites but it is in a tough niche. Given the overall superiority of sites like Mojiti, Bubbleply's value will diminish soon without additional features.

Indiepad - This is musical social network that had some promise, but ultimately has not overcome more advanced competition. The last blog entry promised members some kind of affiliation and this was back in January. Outlook – Indiepad is on the way to being road kill without some resurrection.

Wambo – Wambo is still out there grazing, but IM's have some steep and established competition. Tweaking, custom frames and a little speed boost won't cut it against established competition. Outlook- this doggie is headed for hamburger unless they get innovative soon.

Moob – Moob is a hip hop social network in Australia. The niche site is announcing a redesign that is impossible to miss on the current top banner header. The forum, which has always been a little Web 1.0, does not appear very current but the site is still striking and interesting. A fair assessment would be that any niche site had better be in one heck of a big and popular niche to survive. Outlook- Moob might elude the lasso for a bit, but to make it their target audience needs to be larger.

Search-Wikia – Formerly tagged Wikiasari, this Wikia project promises to provide relevant searches powered by people. The success of other Jimmy Wales efforts focuses both anticipation and pressure on the promising new search entity. The development appears to be somewhat bogged down right now, but suggestions for semantic tagging and other viable paths are being discussed. Wikia-Search is still in its infancy as the project participants are still disseminating ideas and information. Outlook – It is too early to tell because of the logistics and complexity of the project. Some collaboration with other semantic search entities will likely be necessary to enter the market anytime soon.

With over 300 startups banging down the doors to success it is obvious that the door will not open for them all. Personally, I hate to see so many fall by the way, and am a little dismayed that they don't push a little harder to get to the other side.