NoozHawk – Birdwatching Goes High-Tech with UCSB Grad’s New Birdeez App

NoozHawk LogoI sat down with NoozHawk to talk about the Birdeez update and Lara Cooper did a great job of telling our whole story! Read it below or visit NoozHawk for their coverage.

From NoozHawk’s Lara Cooper:

Last fall, Jeff Simeon stood backstage, waiting to go before more than 1,000 people to make the biggest presentation of his life.

Continue reading NoozHawk – Birdwatching Goes High-Tech with UCSB Grad’s New Birdeez App

Tech Crunch – Birdeez One of the 14 Most Interesting Startups at DEMO

TechCrunchLogoBirdeez was picked up by TechCrunch for our appearance at DEMO. People always seemed shocked to have a Bird app as part of their lineup. Bird watching is one of the things that drove the development of the internet! Maybe I’ll have to do a retrospective on bird watching and technology.

Ecolek’s Birdeez grew out of a student project at UC Santa Barbara. A bird in the hand is worth two on your phone, or something. The app, simply put, helps bird-watchers … track birds they see on their routine bird-watching adventures … read descriptions of the avian animals you identify, keep track of all your sightings and even tweet about it. Get it? Tweet? Warning: This app may not have quite as much utility if you’re an urban dweller. You can only identify pigeons so many times.

That last part is totally false. There are likely close over 50 species of birds near you even if you are in a city! We chose to launch the app with an American Kestrel because it is an amazingly beautiful bird you can see almost anywhere in the US. But I was hoping to get a Peregrine Falcon since that is a species that nests on City Hall in San Jose, next door to DEMO!

Read about the rest of the 14 Most Interesting Startups to Emerge from DEMO on TechCrunch.

TechHive – The mobile age opened the door to a new way of identifying birds

TechHiveLogoSome great coverage in TechHive of our Birdeez launch!

The mobile age opened the door to a new way of identifying birds, taking advantage of the peculiar capabilities of smartphones, Simeon said. He calls Birdeez “Foursquare for birds.”

Read the rest on TechHive.

Venture Beat – EcoLek won the DEMO God Award!

VentureBeatlogoWe at EcoLek are amazed to announce that we won the DEMO God award for Birdeez! Our presentation really came together on October 3rd, and we were selected as one of the best! As Meghan Kelly of Venture Beat puts it:

Out of the 77 companies that demonstrated their products at this week’s DEMO conference, only five won the coveted DEMO God award. These startups don’t only have great businesses, but were awesome on stage.

We’re looking forward to taking this win and continuing to build a fantastic company. Thanks to Venture Beat and all the folks at DEMO Fall 2012 that voted for us!

Read about us and the rest on Venture Beat.

Venture Beat – Today, birdwatching. Tomorrow, saving the entire planet!

VentureBeatlogoEcoLek was selected to launch our app Birdeez at DEMO Fall 2012 by Venture Beat. Their coverage was really great, and it was awesome to learn that Executive Editor Dylan Tweney is himself a beginning birdwatcher!

The U.S. has an estimated 48 million birdwatchers, but 74 percent can’t identify more than 20 birds.

I’d fall in that category: I could point out a red-tailed hawk, a turkey vulture, a crow, and … a bunch of little brown birds. But with 900+ species in the country, I know I’m missing a lot.

Fortunately, there’s an app for that.

Birdeez is an iPhone app that makes it “ridiculously easy,” in the words of cofounder Jeff Simeon, to identify birds and then share your sightings on Twitter. I can only imagine that if the geeky Jack Black character in “The Big Year” had this app, he’d have powered to the top of the rankings much faster than that annoying Owen Wilson character.

Read the rest on Venture Beat

Macworld – Birdeez app flies toward birdwatchers’ iPhones

Macworld-LogoBirdeez was featured in MacWorld! Here is a short quote from me.

“We’re really passionate about getting people outside, exploring nature again. Kind of unplugging from their computer screens,” he said. Simeon has worked as an environmental educator, while Toerner is a recent graduate in economics and Kuo is an electrical engineer. Their company, EcoLek, grew out of a business-school project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Read the rest on Macworld!

CIO – This Social, Local and Mobile App IS for the Birds

CIO-LogoThe DEMO Fall 2012 coverage for Birdeez is starting!

While some people think social, location-based mobile apps are for the birds, others might like to use them for that very purpose. That’s the idea behind Birdeez, an iOS app created by three partners in California who have birdwatchers in their sights.

Read the rest on CIO.

PacBizTimes – Birdeez Wins UCSB New Venture Competition!

PacficCoastBusinessTimesLogo-300x71Amazing to think won against such a great field of competitors! We’re thrilled that we won the New Venture Competition’s Market Pull category, and happy for the coverage in Pacific Coast Business Times!

In the marketing-oriented category, the $5,000 top winner was Birdeez, a smart phone application that helps bird watchers locate and identify birds then log and share their findings. While the idea sounds fanciful as a business, the judges and audience were persuaded…

“At first we though, Birds? What?” said Mike Panesis, one of the event’s organizers. “But this team impressed us every step of the way, with both their technology and their business.”

Read the rest and about the other winners at PacBizTimes.com.

Pacific Coast Business Times – Bird-watching apps and Electric Porsches: Startups Pitch Ideas

PacficCoastBusinessTimesLogo-300x71We advanced to the FINAL of the New Venture Competition! We’re also very excited to be in the Pacific Coast Business Times. Patrick even got his picture in there!

Among the more novel ideas was Birdeez, a smartphone and Web app to help bird watchers identify, log and share their sightings. Patrick Toerner, one of the students behind the idea, notes that “birders” often spend fanatically on binoculars and camera gear – and a full-color bird identification book. “That’s what we’re trying to get rid of,” he said.

Read the rest on PacBizTimes.com