GoodGuide Takes Top Prize At Web 2.0 Summit Launchpad

One of the featured events at this week's Web 2.0 Summit was the Launchpad, a showcase of six companies that were each given 5 minutes to pitch a room full of VC's, entrepreneurs, and other notables in the tech industry. The companies were judged by a panel of venture capitalists, consisting of: Chris Albinson (Panorama Capital), Patrick Chung (New Enterprise Associates), Michael Goguen (Sequoia Capital), Erik Straser (Mohr Davidow Ventures), and Todor Tashev (Omidyar Networks).

As soon as the presentations were concluded, the audience was asked to vote on its favorite company using an instant-SMS voting system. After only a few minutes GoodGuide, a TechCrunch50 finalist, emerged as the crowd favorite and took the top prize.

Below are profiles of each presenting company, along with some of the input offered by the VC panel.

CarbonNetworks

CarbonNetworks is an emissions management software platform that allows companies to effectively keep track of their emissions and monetize them. The site offers price forecasting so companies can determine if their carbon credits will be financial asset or liabilities, and helps them deal with them accordingly. The site isn't exclusively involved with carbon offsets, as it also looks at different sources or energy and offers consulting services.

Michael Goguen - I question the timing. One has to wonder if the priorities are shifting. Are companies really going to be spending on this at this point, instead of cutting costs? While SaaS model has lots of appeal, it seems to work best when you can justify paying for it constantly, instead of just upfront once. Once I get my act together would I still want to pay for it?

EveryScape

EveryScape is like a Google Street View for everything, offering 3D interiors of restaurants, salons, salons, retail stores, or any other interior users might be interested in. The site takes ground level photography using what founder Mok Oh called a "highly affordable and scalable technique" (though he didn't specify how it was any more affordable than the technology that already exists).

Users are presented with an interface that looks much like it would on Google Maps Street View, which they can use to navigate throughout the building. Examples of possible applications include allowing users to point out a specific table in a restaurant where their friends should meet. Eventually the site hopes to bring its technology to mobile devices like the iPhone.

Patrick Chung - My question is, is it a street view add-on? You're gong to have trucks drive around to assemble the database. The images are going to be 2D, they aren't going to have physics¿ If I wanted to see what something looked like at night, summer, winter, you'd have to duplicate by sending a truck out again.

Michael Goguen - People do still go out in the real world. There hasn't been a good connection between the web and the real world. This could apply to a large number of industries.

GoodGuide