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Under the Radar: 32 cool business Web apps

How to do business on Web 2.0

Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
Rafe Needleman
2 min read

Please join me at Under the Radar!

Next Thursday in Mountain View, 32 new (or newish) companies will present their business-focused Web apps at the Under the Radar conference. I'll be moderating at the event, so please look me up if you are there. Click here for $100 discount on admission to the show.

Josh and I will pick our favorite apps from the event once it's over, but going in there are few I plan to pay special attention to:

DocSyncer. A little utility to synchronize your Microsoft Office documents into your Google Docs account. I can't for the life of me see this as an ongoing business, but it sounds like a handy app nonetheless since it could blend the power of Microsoft's Office suite with the real-time collaboration you get with Google Docs.

Elastra. This is an "infinitely scalable" relational database running on Amazon's Web Services. The upsides to that: It should be fast, and it should be reasonably priced. The downside: Despite Amazon's claims to the contrary, AWS is not 100% reliable.

Sliderocket is taking a swipe at Google Docs.

Mumboe. Document management for legal agreements. What's interesting is the product's focus on keeping both parties in compliance with the contracts they sign. I am curious to hear how the product manages that.

NuConomy is a Web analytics company that goes beyond pageview and visitor tracking and measures "engagement." This is critically important for Web 2.0 sites that use interactive technologies (Flash and Ajax), which render the old metrics largely irrelevant.

Sliderocket. New online presentation app. Looks like it could trounce Google Docs' Presentations module, and be competitive with other Web 2.0 preso apps as well.

The entire lineup looks interesting. Several of the presenters we've also covered previously, but all of the companies in my list above are new to Webware. Check back Thursday for the full report from Under the Radar.