Ask YC: Your favorite startups lately

[gaia-forming]

What's some of your favorite innovative startups lately?

I like the approach that RethinkDB is taking with their SSD DB technology.

* = Doesn't have to be YC

[pg]

Picwing (http://picwing.com) is probably the one that has improved our life the most lately. It is the perfect thing for people with new babies. Your relatives get a regular stream of new prints with near zero effort.

[ivankirigin]

Do they no longer make hardware?

[zaveri]

Sry downvoted by mistake, on iPhone...

[PStamatiou]

I like Etherpad, but I'm not sure why. I'm a big G Docs user, or at least was in college, and use both for the same features (don't do too much heavy collab). But I use Etherpad Pro to consolidate all the random text files I have lying around usually. I think I like it because it's simple, non-nosense and logging into google docs is a pain. I have it on google apps and i never remember the URL so i have to log into mail, click the icon, etc. Granted I could setup a CNAME but I digress..

Maybe I like em more than gDocs b/c they're also a startup..

[alexsolo]

I agree completely. Etherpad is a lot better than Google Docs. The big reason for me is that it provides instant collaboration. When I type something in, the other people editing the doc can see my changes instantly.

For Goog Docs, it takes a few seconds to see someone's changes. It's great for solo editing, but very annoying for collaborative work.

[dfranke]

Tarsnap is unique among the startups that get play here in getting me to open my wallet to the tune of more than the price of a T-shirt.

[plinkplonk]

Tarsnap! Solo Founder, great product, great payment terms. What's not to like?

[cperciva]

Thanks for the vote of confidence! :-)

[paulgb]

GitHub really impresses me.

[calvin]

GitHub has found its way into my workflow for web development work. Plus, the sheer number of useful projects and source code available from other developers keeps brings me back to the site frequently.

[icco]

I agree. I really like their release cycle and transparency. They produce a solid product, they understand their market, and they are innovative. The only thing I don't know is how profitable they are.

[bdmac97]

Heroku...

After that I'm a bit partial to launchly but that's probably because it's mine. :-)

[Readmore]

Yeah Heroku is awesome, I'm really enjoying their new deployment platform.

[gaia-forming]

The heroku guys do a really solid job.

What's launchy?

[eel]

thesixtyone, probably. It's replaced Pandora for me. It's a little too social networky (I just want to listen to music!) but it works.

[adamhowell]

+1 thesixtyone. The idea of giving users quests to reward them for exploring a site/app more is inspiring.

[gehant]

big fan of thesixtyone - has one of the best streaming music players on the web...quality product.

Plus, huge kudos to them for not relying on RIAA as is true with most other online music services.

[tripngroove]

ahh, the sixtyone is great. stellar way to find new music.

also, they make it super easy to buy music that you like. i just wish more artists on the site had stuff for sale!

[clistctrl]

I never heard of it before, but I love it! My girlfriend is going crazy about it too :)

[mrduncan]

280 North for re-inventing how web apps can be developed.

[jseeba]

Posterous. It just works.

[zaveri]

Amazing how they continue to crank out feature after feature. They are wicked fast..

[pclark]

dropbox. still.

[mtrichardson]

Dropbox takes up all of my CPU these days. It's very depressing how little I use it now.

[gaia-forming]

I agree, Dropbox is a really nice startup; really polished.

[jackchristopher]

Dropbox helps gets things done but stays out of the way. It's so subtle I forget I even use it. That's exactly what I like in a program.

[dotcoma]

dropbox and spotify.

[revertts]

Spideroak impressed me. It's a service similar to Dropbox, but with more emphasis on privacy. I found their devs really accessible and interesting to talk to.

[turtle4]

Nice. New to me.

[christonog]

I'm really finding Evernote a great tool for syncing my daily to-do lists.

[zaveri]

Prefer ShoveBox, however only available for OS X... http://www.wonderwarp.com/shovebox/

[paul9290]

Is Evernote a YC company? I can find any info to this regards. Here is a list of YC companies http://www.crunchbase.com/company/y-combinator, though not sure if it's a comprehensive one?

[nwjsmith]

Github takes the cake for me. It makes reading and finding code a breeze, and for the relatively unexperienced (like me), it has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry for OSS.

A Facebook for hackers, I love it.

[blender]

cloudkick, I think those guys did a great job.

Delivered something of value, freemium business model that I believe will work extraordinarily well for them.

My hat is off to them! Just wish I would've thought of it first.

[gaia-forming]

I guess it's about execution every time, and yeah, they execute well.

[kalvin]

Aardvark for potentially kicking off a new way to search (and even if not, for having awesome diction)

Kickstarter for being beautiful and the first crowdfunding site that looks like it has a chance to explode.

[alexsolo]

Billmonk, for splitting restaurant bills with friends.

[alexsolo]

Chatterous. I have it hooked up to my IM, and I use it for group chat all the time.

[htsh]

grooveshark, still wonky interface but its as close to spotify I can find on our shores.

..of course I still use dropbox .. who doesn't? I stopped using evernote as I got tired of having to use Wine to run it..

[jasonlbaptiste]

Favorite Startups of 2009

vark.com listia.com saynow.com

[mrlebowski]

Cloudera! Their tutorials kick-ass :)

[dshah]

I like the following (may not as cool as some of those listed, but they're great startups and driving real revenue):

1. ZenDesk 2. Freshbooks 3. 99designs