Startup roundup- iPolipo;Snapgalaxy; bOKnow; AShopfor; uPlayMe; Apparent Networks

By Vivek | July 17th, 2007 at 03:42 pm ET         

iPolipo: Another app in the league of Timebridge/Tungle/iKordo/Doodle. iPolipo basically lets you share your available times from your calendar with external people. You need to be a Windows XP or Vista user on Outlook. Comes with 30 free trial and need to pay $99/year or $149/year after that. UI pretty much sucks.

SnapGalaxy: The photo print service startup is looking to grab few users from outgoing Yahoo photo service. SnapGalaxy has a new feature “Import Yahoo! Photos to SnapGalaxy” where if you do the obvious you would get 25 free prints upon successful photo transfer. Not heard of a successful case, so please try at your time risk.

bOKnow.com: Put simply, bOKnow is a call-back concept based VoIP calling service where calls originate via a SMS. Can be a great idea for people with data plans. But more than likely it never get the traction to take off ’cause it is too much of a pain to understand a new service and eventually initiate a call. flipMail is a similar SMS based idea but for emails.

Ashopfor.com - Launched last weekend, AShopfor is looking to compete with Zlio and likes. You can create your own online shop with retailers from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. You choose a goal for your shop and invite friends or supporters to help you earn money towards the goal. Your shop earns a cash back contribution from the retailers when you or your friends make a purchase through the retailer links on your shop or when you refer a new shop. So what do earn?- When your shop refers new shops, Ashopfor gives you 20% of the total amount of the contributions they make, without them losing out…..

uPlayMe: The music recommendation startup now has it’s downloadable client working on Mac OSX. Mac users can download it and try it out from http://www.uplayme.com. Related linky

Apparent Networks: Moving on the the enterprise side,  Apparent Networks yesterday announced that it has raised $13.6 million in Series B financing. Bain Capital Ventures and JMI Equity led the round, which also included current investors, Business Development Bank of Canada and Aden Investments.  The company currently has more than 135 customers, 17,000 users, and strategic partnerships with firms such as ACS, Nortel, Polycom, and Toshiba. AN’s core product AppCritical enables it’s customers to monitor and improve network performance.