Despite the delay, JetAmerica isn’t too worried about its ability to succeed.

Said Brian Burling of JetAmerica: “The delay is not as unusual as it sounds. Historically many of the world’s most successful airlines and charter services have had to delay their launches.”

JetAmerica has gained a lot of fame due to claims that they will offer non-stop fares starting at $9. Considering the rising fares seen everyone else in the airline industry and there’s no surprise that consumers will jump at those $9 tickets.

The company says that they will refund money that consumers spent on purchasing tickets that were for flights from July 13th to August 13th.

Said Bryan Glazer of JetAmerica: “Recognizing that this delay is an inconvenience; as a courtesy aimed at preventing erosion of consumer confidence, JetAmerica will offer passengers who were originally booked on flights from July 13 through August 13 special incentives to rebook on future flights when they call our reservations center.”

It’ll be worth watching to see if JetAmerica can truly offer $9 fares. If so, this budget airline could take off — no pun intended.

Post from: Startup Spark

First of all, there are no shipping fees. In most cases, if you want to order something like napkins online, a lot of the money you pay would go towards shipping. That isn’t the case at Alice.com.

Next, Alice.com offers very competitive prices. They do it by cutting out the middle man and letting manufacturers market and sell directly to the consumers.

“By eliminating the traditional retail layer,” said Brian Wiegand, Alice.com’s CEO and co-founder, “we allowed the companies that produce these goods to connect directly with the people who use them. The result is a neutral platform for (consumer packaged goods) manufacturers to work together as an industry and channel their resources in exciting new ways for the consumer.”

Third of all, Alice.com has a feature that remembers orders and offers warnings when household items may be running low.

Finally, this service makes it much easier to use coupons. You don’t have to take coupons to the store with you. Instead, coupons can redeemed easily using their online interface.

If you don’t like going to the store to purchase your household items, Alice.com gives you an interesting alternative.

Alice.com (Image: Alice.com Screen Cap)

Post from: Startup Spark

Here are some tips on how you can save money on an online startup:

1. Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
If there are software packages out there that can do the job you need, don’t try to reinvent the wheel right out of the gates. For example, don’t try build your own blogging software when there are a number of free blogging software packages on the market.

2. Be Smart with your Host
When buying web hosting, don’t overshoot your estimates of how much traffic you will get. The smart move is to start small and improve your web hosting capabilities as the traffic dictates.

3. Utilize Freelancers
Instead of hiring full time employees right away, go with freelancers. The great thing with freelancers is that you don’t run as much of a risk as paying someone when there is no work to be done.

4. Work from Home
Office space is rarely needed right away for an online startup. Wait until you are seeing definite signs of success before you guy purchase office space.

Work from Home (Image: Flickr)

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Claiming to be the world’s largest dedicated video advertising network, YuMe has the ability to give extreme reach to advertisers through their network. Publishers who have chosen YuMe include Glam Media, egoTV, blip.tv, JoeCartoon and RedOrbit.

Per month, YuMe handles about 560 million video streams and more than 63 million unique viewers.

As video on the internet continues to grow in popularity, YuMe is definitely a startup to keep an eye on.

YuMe (Image: YuMe.com Screen Cap)

Post from: Startup Spark

Admitting your startup has failed can be difficult to do, especially if you’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears into the company. But here are a few reasons that should make you consider closing up shop and moving on:

No sign of profits in the horizon
If your company is constantly losing money or simply not producing enough money to warrant the time you spend on it, that’s the main sign that it’s time to admit the startup is a failure. However, be sure to give your startup a fair chance. In the online world, two years is usually the amount of time a startup is given to show some signs of life.

Loss of passion
Most startups are brought into life due to a passion one of the founders has bout the specific field or industry. If that passion disappears, it can be very difficult to keep going. Instead of fighting the feeling, consider selling or closing the startup.

Too much quality competition
If you have direct competition that has a better product that is available for less money, that’s an ominous sign. A good rule of thumb is that if you can’t rationalize why someone should utilize your product or service over the products of your competitors, a new direction is needed.

Self survival
If you are trying to support a family with a startup business and you can’t make ends meet, that is probably a sign that you need to figure out a new plan. You don’t need to necessarily shut down your startup, but harming yourself and your family to chase a startup dream rarely makes sense — especially if the chase has lasted a number of years.

Startup Failure (Image: Flickr)

Post from: Startup Spark

According to the Ooma.com website, once you purchase their device, you can plug it into a high-speed internet connection and you will be able to call anywhere in the United States for free. The quality is supposedly landline-like and has features such as voicemail, call waiting and caller ID.

While there are many other comparable services on the market, the reviews for the Ooma.com free home phone service have been very positive.

Recently, Ooma.com won the Innovation Award from the Technology Marketing Corporation and presented by Internet Telephony.

Said Richard Buchanan, Ooma.com’s chief marketing officer: “At ooma, we are committed to providing excellence and innovation within the IP communications industry through technologies that forever change the home phone experience. We are thrilled that the ooma Hub and Scout received the 2009 INTERNET TELEPHONY TMC Labs Innovation Award – as it validates our dedication to pioneering advanced technology like superior call quality and reliability, unique telephony and networking features, all at a significant cost savings to consumers.”

It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on this startup and see if they can get a significant portion of the lucrative free home phone market.

Ooma (Image: Ooma.com)

Post from: Startup Spark

Founded in the beginning of 2009, Breaking Tweets says that their philosophy is “hyperlocal gone global.” The setup of their website uses tweets from Twitter to help expand the view of global events. It also allows gives world news multiple voices to get all different sides of the stories.

Instead of bringing in tweets automatically, Breaking Tweets has a group of editors that select and arrange the Tweets in a way that a news story is formed. In addition to tweets, outbound links are present to other stories that help give additional information.

BreakingTweets.com got a lot of publicity recently with the happenings in Iran. If you tried to follow the Iran news on Twitter, it was a bit confusing and a lot of the flow was flooded with spam and shouting. Breaking Tweets, on the other hand, was able to find the useful tweets and put them together in a useful manner.

Overall, Breaking Tweets is a Twitter related startup to keep an eye on.

Breaking Tweets (BreakingTweets.com Screen Cap)

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JournalismOnline.com is attempting to change that. According to the company, they hope to monetize newspaper content in a way that could generate millions of dollars. If they are successful, they may be the saviors of the newspaper industry.

The model that JournalismOnline.com is a password-protected members area that will supposedly make it easy for both newspapers and consumers to get what they want. While this startup is still in its early stages, it’ll be interesting to see if they are able to make any headway.

With the amount of free news that is available, it seems unlikely that people will suddenly be willing to pay for newspaper content. But if JournalismOnline.com can get enough newspapers on board, consumers may have no other choice.

Journalism Online (Image: JournalismOnline.com Screen Cap)

Post from: Startup Spark

Jobvana.com (Image: Jobvana)

The startup said they will use this funding to help launch their national marketing efforts and to speed up the production of their website development.

While Hawkeye Investments LLC had previously provided funding, Rally Capital LLC is new to the mix.

Said Nathan Casey, the President of Jobvana.com: “It’s tremendous to add a partner like Rally Capital. Dennis Weibling and his team have a proven track record of growing successful companies.”

Jobvanna.com boasts more than 30,000 businesses that are using their service. According to the company, their traffic increase has been rapid in recent months.

Said Weibling of Rally Capital LLC: “We were excited about Jobvana’s growth in this type of environment, and their ability to mold their product to the customers’ needs. Every time we looked at Jobvana we saw great leaps forward, in terms of product development, and a user base that was excited to grow and evolve with the site.”

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Xiant.com’s first product is called Xiant Filer. Available for free on a 60-day trial, Xiant Filer allows you to quickly and easily organize your email inboxes. Simply integrate it with your Microsoft Outlook and it begins doing its work immediately.

Allen, who left Microsoft more than 25 years ago, currently is the chairman of Vulcan Inc. — a project management and investment company.

Said Chris Purcell, the VP of Vulcan Inc.: “It’s a return of sorts to Paul’s roots. Xiant Filer started as a personal project to help Paul keep up with heavy e‐mail traffic. It worked so well we all started using it, which led us to take it to market.”

The Xiant Filer won’t be the only product released by Xiant.com. The company is said to be working on a number of tools that will help computer users become more organized, connected and ultimately more productive.

It’ll be extremely interesting to see how a startup led by billionaire Paul Allen will do in this current market.

Xiant Filer (Image: Xiant.com Screen Cap)

Post from: Startup Spark