A Peek Behind the Curtain to the Future

I read this CNN article on "The Next Disruptors" (click on title of this post for the link), and a couple of the companies mentioned really caught my attention with their visions of the future. Not to mention the possibility of investing in/trading them if they are not acquired by the time they go public is appealing enough for me to bookmark these companies for future reference.

CogHead - This company provides you with the tools to build your own Web2.0 app - all this without requiring you to know any of the Web2.0 languages, like XML, CSS, DHTML, AJAX, PHP, Flash, etc. Ok, maybe some knowledge of scripting is required, but if you can pretty up your blog, you're sophisticated enough to use CogHead!

Propser.com - I mentioned this company before, and it's worth mentioning again, because the concept of peer-to-peer lending is just the kind of disruptive innovation that can threaten the structure of the traditional loans from conventional banks. P2P lending decreases risk by diversification, enables personal lending on a anytime/anywhere massive scale, and reaches customers that would otherwise be unserved. Another company that is experiencing success with the P2P lending model is Zopa.
It's too bad there is no such service available in Canada, and also doubly bad that these companies are not yet public.

NextMedium - this startup is doing something almost revolutionary, and yet at the same time, almost inevitable as well. Through an online exchange, this company automates and standardizes the process of commercial product placement in TV shows, movies, and videogames. Sort of like an eBay type of marketplace bringing advertisers and media content producers together. The media industry has been dying for this kind of an application with immensely lucrative potential, and for me, the question is whether eBay or Google will acquire them before they go public.


EEStor - This startup is so secretive that it doesn't even have a website. It has also been dubbed the next Google of the clean energy industry. It is developing a hypercapacitor that it claims has 10x the energy capacity of a lead-acid battery of a comparable weight, requires only about 5 mintues to charge up, is not explosive, corrosive, or hazardous, and costs much less to produce than a Li-Ion battery. The initial application for this hypercapacitor is electric vehicles, but can also be eventually extended to basically replace the battery as we know it. Sounds too good to be true, but note that KPCB has been drinking from the same cup of Kool-Aid - and this is the same VC firm that made early investments into Amazon, Google, AOL, Netscape, Tivoli, and most recently, BroadWing.