Shaker Wins TechCrunch Disrupt Start-Up Contest

Shaker, a brave that turns Facebook into a "virtual bar," shook things up by successful the TechCrunch Interrupt San Francisco 2011 start-up repugn.

Shaker vanquish seven finalists including Bitcasa (which promises to make for you outright cloud storage for just $10/month).

Shaker in a nutshell

Mover and shaker is a social game played via the Facebook platform. But IT's not your average FarmVille. As an alternative of cultivating virtual crops or shooting virtual Mafiosi, Shaker turns Facebook into a "virtual bar" where you ass meet and interact with new people.

The game throne be thinking of as a mix of Facebook (because, after complete, it has all of your profile info from Facebook) and those realistic, embodiment-based chat rooms such atomic number 3 The Palace Oregon Second Life sentence. The experience is cool, not just because you nettle se other masses, but because most of the Facebook games I've played are dismally empty thanks to my severe lack of friends WHO want to make farms. Shaker also shows you what you induce in common with other people, supported your public visibility information (such as birthdays, interests, and hometowns).

Shaker really tries to replicate the bar scene, right down to a "Shaker Transplantable" smartphone that lets you tempt friends to the effect, refer information about who's in the ginmill, and play a Snake-equal mobile game called Snaker.

Shake things up

Shaker is presently in "single private beta," which is, at the moment, still open. (You can sign up for IT here.)

Getting started is quick and elliptic. Afterward you allow Mover and shaker to access your Facebook profile and information, you can bestir oneself right away aft choosing your share-out level. There are three opposite sharing levels — "Timid," which shows just your basic information and visibility pics; "Standard," which shows the "Shy" info, as considerably Eastern Samoa tagged photos; and "Friendly," which shows the "Normal" info, as well as all of your photo albums.

Once you've selected a sharing level (and connected your Twitter account, if you thusly choose), you'll be thrust into the practical bar civilisation of Shaker. You appear as a generic avatar, but your Facebook profile picture appears in a speech bubble above your head. This way, hoi polloi can hit along you, pop out conversations, and other interact – staples of the bar scene. If you want to mouth off to someone, just click connected their incarnation and you'll end up with a number of options: View Profile, Invite to confabulate, Link up chat, Private Message, Buy Drink, and Block off.

To move around the essential bar, honorable click anyplace in the room and your avatar will move thereto area. If you're currently in a chat with soul, moving away from them volition mean going away the chat — just now equivalent in a real debar. You lavatory also sink in connected piece of furniture to sit down operating room jump up and dance on a bar or defer.

Your avatar as wel has a few options, such atomic number 3 "Sway information technology." Clicking on this will cause your avatar to shiver to and fro in around forgery of bar dance.

I have to hand IT to Mover and shaker, it is more alike a real bar than some other essential chat board I've been in. Not only do you have to exist vertical come on mortal in order to mouth to them, you can as wel arbitrarily articulation in conversations if you walk aweigh to two people who are already speaking. As wel, the basic interface, though simple, looks like a bar or club, with music performin in the background (the strain name and creative person gyre in a box above the windowpane).

Gap

Shaker, which has already raised $3 jillio in funding, seems suchlike it could be an interesting twist to social gaming. And, IT's definitely making waves; when I checked it out last, there were more than 80 citizenry in the taproo and it was acquiring a little crowded. Perhaps the next step will personify essential bouncers and lines.

Other notable start-ups in the TechCrunch Disrupt contend include runner-up Optical prism Skylabs (a cloud-settled picture service that brings physical spaces, such as offices, online via television) and audience pick victor Vocre (a translation app that uses the iPhone's accelerometer for controls).

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/482835/shaker_wins_techcrunch_distrupt_start_up_contest.html

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