Posts tagged Free
Meet EvoNexus – the Country’s Only Free Startup Incubator
Apr 28th
There are more than 1,000 business incubators in the U.S. But there’s only one pro bono incubator. No, not a professional startup camp run by the U2 frontman. Which is probably a good thing, since Bono was named the 2010 worst investor in America. (OK, that was before he hit home runs with Facebook and Dropbox.)
Pro bono as in free. EvoNexus (which does sound kind of like a U2 album), is a project of San Diego tech industry association CommNexus, which launched the incubator in 2009 to stimulate the growth of new high-tech companies in the area.
Like most other high-tech incubators, EvoNexus provides entrepreneurs with office space, mentoring and VC networking. But unlike other incubators, those entrepreneurs pay no fees and give up no equity.
“We believe we’re the nation’s only pro-bono high-tech incubator, no strings attached,” says EvoNexus operations director Bailey Cunning. “Our sole goal is to grow the tech sector in San Diego. And we want to do it without making companies give something up.”
It’s an attractive proposition. And it’s drawing a lot of interest from entrepreneurs. EvoNexus has had more than 300 applicants since it started – a third of them in the past eight months. About one in 18 is accepted, and there are currently 23 entrepreneurs in residence at the program’s two office spaces in downtown and suburban San Diego. Startups stay for an average of a year and a half, a lot longer than the three-month tenure at a typical for-profit incubator.
EvoNexus participants get facilities, utilities, broadband and all the business services they need. They get help with their pitches and free lunches with VCs. They get to choose their own mentors based on industry fit. And they get San Diego beaches, sunshine and the Gaslamp Quarter to unwind after a hard week of development.
“Applicants are usually pretty shocked that we offer all this pro bono,” Cunning says. “Usually they want to apply immediately.”
Twenty-nine startups have been incubated to date, and six have “graduated,” which means they’ve gotten a VC or strategic investment and left the nest. Graduates include EcoATM (recycling kiosks for consumer electronics), IO Semiconductor (fabless semiconductors), TretraVue (3D measurement and imaging), Pixon Imaging (advanced real-time video image processing), MicroPower Technologies (wireless surveillance) and Perminova (Web-based cardiology software).
EvoNexus is supported by local corporations including Qualcomm, LG, Nokia and Verizon. In return for their assistance, they get a more vibrant tech sector in their neighborhood – and they get a pipeline to new technology and talent.
A sponsorship costs $25,000 a year, which is a lot less than some companies pay to onboard a new app and a handful of programmers. (Hello, Facebook.)
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Boasting BiZ Launches Free SEO Quote Contest with Grand Prizes – PR Web (press release)
Apr 26th
 PR Web (press release) |
Boasting BiZ Launches Free SEO Quote Contest with Grand Prizes
PR Web (press release) Delivering world-class value in a spectrum of marketing services, Boasting BiZ prepares to celebrate its three-year anniversary and to thank its users by hosting a simple SEO quote contest with big wins. Boasting BiZ is a Fort Lauderdale based SEO … |
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NewStep Technology Launches Official Offering of Free SEO Consultations – MMD Newswire (press release)
Apr 20th
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NewStep Technology Launches Official Offering of Free SEO Consultations
MMD Newswire (press release) Delhi (India) (MMD Newswire) April 20, 2012 — The official release of the comprehensive free consultation services plan by the foremost India SEO Reseller Company NewStep Technology will be this week. The program is all about the search engine … |
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3 More Free Drawing Apps for Kids
Apr 19th
Like paper coloring books, iPhone and iPad apps cost money. It’s always fun to have the newest, shiniest app in the App Store – but those come with a price. Oftentimes they cost something, and they may not always ring true with your kid. Buying too many apps can add up, making for an unhappy dent on a parent’s credit card bill. So what’s a parent to do?
Welcome to free drawing apps. They’re good enough to use and discard, much like a coloring book that has been filled up. And in this way, the disposable factor makes these apps that much more attractive. They will keep kids entertained for an afternoon – and when you discard them, you’ll feel like you’ve had a good experience with a free product.
MyPaint Free: Get What You Don’t Pay For
MyPaint Free is a fairly simple app for your basic drawing needs. Seriously, do not try to get fancy with this app. Like MSPaint, it offers you a few simple options: change the brush size and softness or the color of the paint. Enlarge the image if you so desire. Draw white scribbly eraser lines in something you’ve just drawn. MyPaintFree succeeds in its simplicity, yet fails in the extra steps you need to take in order to toggle back and forth from painting screen to painting tools. To do so, hit the little puppy in the lower righthand corner of the screen.
To go back and “undo” the last action, choose the little blue hook-like option. Much like the Edit/Undo Typing action on a Word processor, which takes you back to the previous step, MyPaint Free only allows you to backtrack once. It’s no Photoshop, where you can trace your every last move. But then again, it’s free, it’s easy to use and you can just as quickly discard what you’ve made. Paint with your fingertip, not your hand. Drag it across the glass screen until lines look like thick globs of virtual paint. Throw the picture out when you’re done.
More Apps for Kids & Preteens
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How Parents Can Help Their Preteens Navigate the Social Web
MyPaint Free is a fantastically simple app for momentary creative urges that need a glass screen rather than a piece of scrap paper. It makes one’s fingertip bleed color and feel like a paintbrush in and of itself. ReadWriteWeb highly recommends MyPaint Free for its simplicity and easily discardable nature.
Kid Paint: Go Nuts With Stickers
For the more advanced kid who likes horses, clouds, frogs and hearts mixed in with their scribbles, there’s the free app Kid Paint. The app opens to a blank screen, where a kid is able to choose a tool to use: paint brush, paint bucket or just their finger. An eraser
seems more like a white pencil line, rather than an actual eraser. What differentiates this app from MyPaint Free, however, is the ability to drop on little mini stickers. The nice part about this is, unlike actual stickers that collect dust, hair and tiny human particles of skin – which eventually cause the stickers to lose their stick – these little guys stay stuck virtually, pixel for pixel. You can also upload an image from your camera roll, and play around by painting over that.
Kid Paint is worth the price of free. The premade stickers make this one step up from MyPaint Free and suggest to kids that art can include more than just their own “finger of genius.” It can incorporate premade kitsch items, like smiley-face stickers, frogs and hearts. However, you will grow weary of the same stickers and eventually delete the app from your phone all together.
Vehicle Colors: Paint Your Way to a Car Today!
Both Kid Paints and MyPaint Free don’t care if you draw within the lines. Vehicle Colors is a bit more stringent in that respect, and might appeal more to the perfectionist kid type.
Open the app and turn the iPhone sideways. Then select from four different vehicle-filled options: Cartoon, Magic, Paint and Maze. Select Cartoon, and you’re presented with a shy purple truck. Move the truck around the white canvas, or leave it where it is and draw sparkly lines around it. As the paint “dries,” the sparkles disappear, and you’re left with singular scribbles. Select additional vehicles to add to the image, like a helicopter or a tractor.
The Paint option is more like a coloring book, challenging kids to keep the colors inside the lines. When you’re drawing with your finger, however, that’s much easier said than done.
The Maze option is the most game-y and the least like drawing. A maze pops up on the screen, and you are asked to draw a line from the car to the end of the maze. If you make it successfully, you get a big flashing “Congratulations” sign. Not bad for a free app.
VehicleColors gives kids more structure than either MyPaint Free or Kid Paint. In that sense, it feels more like a game that one can win, especially the Maze option. While receiving rewards for doing things “right” is important, the subtle coloring-in-the-lines mentality within VehicleColors can be limiting at times. The Paint screen on VehicleColors presents an image that needs color rather than a blank white screen. The Magic option script teaches kids that “magic” happens when they take their finger and move it across a black and white screen until perfectly clean colors appear.
Apps like this provide the kind of “magic” that’s worth the price of free.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Free webcast: Google+ and Social’s Impact on Search
Apr 19th
Tuesday, April 24th – 1 PM EST/10 AM PST Google+ and Social’s Impact on Search Speakers: Monica Wright, Search Engine Land Julia Schoenegger, Searchmetrics Monica Wright from Search Engine Land shares tips on Google+ to get the best results with Google Search. And Julia Schoenegger from…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
Announcing Free SEO Analysis for Websites by Web Gnomes – Virtual-Strategy Magazine
Apr 18th
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Announcing Free SEO Analysis for Websites by Web Gnomes
Virtual-Strategy Magazine With the new, free SEO analysis from Web Gnomes, you get specific, actionable feedback in minutes. Try it for yourself today! Web Gnomes announced today the launch of a free SEO analysis tool on their website. This free SEO analysis is a shorter … |
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Boasting BiZ Now Offers Detailed SEO Quotes Free of Charge – Virtual-Strategy Magazine
Apr 18th
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Boasting BiZ Now Offers Detailed SEO Quotes Free of Charge
Virtual-Strategy Magazine Offering SEO, design, and print services, Boasting BiZ is a multi-faceted company that now offers detailed and dependable SEO quotes to potential clients. Encouraging individuals to discover their website's current situation, Boasting BiZ also shows … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Announcing Free SEO Analysis for Websites by Web Gnomes – PR Web (press release)
Apr 18th
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Announcing Free SEO Analysis for Websites by Web Gnomes
PR Web (press release) With the new, free SEO analysis from Web Gnomes, you get specific, actionable feedback in minutes. Try it for yourself today! Web Gnomes announced today the launch of a free SEO analysis tool on their website. This free SEO analysis is a shorter … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Boasting BiZ Now Offers Detailed SEO Quotes Free of Charge – PR Web (press release)
Apr 18th
 PR Web (press release) |
Boasting BiZ Now Offers Detailed SEO Quotes Free of Charge
PR Web (press release) Offering SEO, design, and print services, Boasting BiZ is a multi-faceted company that now offers detailed and dependable SEO quotes to potential clients. Encouraging individuals to discover their website's current situation, Boasting BiZ also shows … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
Free SEO Training Attains Record Registrations, Announces JM Internet Group – Seattle Post Intelligencer
Apr 14th
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Free SEO Training Attains Record Registrations, Announces JM Internet Group
Seattle Post Intelligencer JM Internet Group announces more than 1000 registrants for its upcoming free SEO training on the Top Ten Free Tools for Google Rank and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Webinar focuses on small business marketing. The JM Internet Group (web: … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
