Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Alikewise Quick Pitch: Alikewise is an online dating site that matches people based on their book tastes. Genius Idea: Online dating in the U.S. is a $1.049 billion per year industry (yes, that’s larger than the online porn... 

Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: face2face Quick Pitch: face2face introduces proximity awareness to mobile phone apps so users can know when their friends are nearby without sacrificing privacy. Genius Idea: face2face is a newly released mobile application that... 

Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Your Tribute Quick Pitch: Your Tribute helps you celebrate life’s significant events online. Genius Idea: Your Tribute offers free hosting and customized design templates for those who would like to create a commemorative website... 

Web technology has revolutionized finance by making it easier than ever to monitor cash flow and track trends in your spending. Mint.com has been a leader in this realm for personal finance: its technology helps you track multiple accounts, analyze spending trends, and manage financial goals. There isn’t a clear counterpart to Mint for businesses, though. That’s where inDinero , a Y-Combinator-funded startup, comes in. inDinero,... 

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: ExtensionFM Quick Pitch: Turn the web into your personal music library. Genius Idea: ExtensionFM is an extension for Google’s Chrome web browser that indexes every MP3 music file... 

There’s a new Chatroulette spinoff in town: meet ChatVille . It’s a Facebook app that combines the basic video chat elements of Chatroulette with the game mechanics, badges and leveling up of casual games like FarmVille . Just like in Chatroulette , you have the opportunity to get paired up with a total stranger — but since the app can also take advantage of your Facebook social graph, you can also invite specific friends to... 

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Magic Window Quick Pitch: Magic Window turns your iPad into a virtual window with magical views of beautiful scenes. Genius Idea: Magic Window’s creator calls it “the ultimate... 

Rounding off the first-ever Twitter developer conference, Chirp , was a lightning-fast roundup of a few apps the Twitter team found fascinating enough to showcase for the 1000-hacker crowd. Each team got exactly 140 seconds to present their wares, and all showcasing apps were judged by an all-star lineup that included moderator and Twitter product VP Jason Goldman, Marissa Mayer of…  Read More →

Etacts , which just presented earlier today at Y Combinator ’s Demo Day, is an attempt to bring advanced customer relationship management to your personal contacts list via a few simple features and a slick Gmail integration. Let’s all just agree: Contact management is a pain in the butt. You want to keep in touch with your friends, business contacts and others, but solutions such as Google Contacts don’t offer advanced customer... 

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Pearltrees Quick Pitch: Pearltrees is a new visual way to organize content on the Web and connecting people’s interests. Genius Idea: How do you organize the web on the browser?... 

Television search engine startup Clicker.com has been in private beta for several months, and sees its public launch today. Positioning itself as a “TV Guide for television content online,” Clicker has indexed over 400,000 episodes from 7000 television shows, making it a veritable one stop shop for finding legally-available TV shows online. With the full launch the site also…  Read More →

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Swift.fm Quick Pitch: Swift.fm is a new, free service that leverages Twitter to let users discover music from folks they’re following on Twitter. Genius Idea: Think of Swift.fm as... 

One of the sessions at today’s 140TC Twitter Conference was a developer launchpad where a handful of third-party Twitter services each had 5 minutes to demo their app to the audience and a panel of judges. One of the interesting sites we hadn’t seen before was Twaller , a service designed to connect travellers with relevant local information on Twitter. The concept behind the site is that while you’re travelling, the people... 

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups.  Read More →

Just over a year ago, Twitter acquired a small startup, Summize , a search engine for tweets. Once the deal was done, Twitter launched Twitter Search , and the real-time search revolution began. Because of that acquisition, real-time search has exploded .  Read More →