Alex Bovee

Although a bit overused these days, the adage “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” seems so fitting for Castlight Health that I just can’t resist. The three year old Health 2.0 startup based in San Francisco is taking a page directly from Justice Brandeis’ playbook by shining some light on the historically opaque world of healthcare services pricing and quality. Their web based platform, only available through employers for now, allows users to search for doctor’s visits, lab work, and various other services, with corresponding out-of-pocket cost calculation and quality metrics. With a handful of companies already signed up for the service, a killer management team, and a great technology, they’re going to be a company to watch in the next few years.

Read the rest of my review here on TechCocktail

Log management may not be the sexiest problem in IT today, but it sure is an important one – and Loggly wants to solve it. The company is building a cloud based logging service that takes the pain out of log collection, management, and processing and offers it on a subscription basis. The product is currently in private beta, but will soon be available to the general public (btw –love the signup page).

Managing and parsing log data is a problem that has existed since the early days of computers – though now, on a bigger scale than ever before. Today, even a basic application with moderate usage can generate many megabytes of data on a daily basis on aggregate across the web server, OS, and application layers. This problem only been exacerbated recently as companies have focused more and more on collecting as much data as possible on user interaction and traffic.

Read the rest of my review here on TechCocktail

New Jersey based startup Opinionaided wants to help you get advice and opinions in real-time. Their platform allows you to pose questions to the world or to your personal network, and crowdsource “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” feedback instantly. Want to know whether to purchase the iPad with 32GB or the cheaper, younger brother? Or, whether it’s worth heading to the movies to watch the new Harry Potter movie? Snap a picture, type in a question, and submit the data using Opinionaided’s iPhone app or website. Within minutes, feedback starts rolling in from friends, family, and the world…

Read the rest of my review here on TechCocktail