What's some of your favorite innovative startups lately?<p>I like the approach that RethinkDB is taking with their SSD DB technology.<p>* = Doesn't have to be YC
Picwing (<a href="http://picwing.com" rel="nofollow">http://picwing.com</a>) is probably the one that has improved our life the most lately. It is the perfect thing for people with new babies. Your relatives get a regular stream of new prints with near zero effort.
I like Etherpad, but I'm not sure why. I'm a big G Docs user, or at least was in college, and use both for the same features (don't do too much heavy collab). But I use Etherpad Pro to consolidate all the random text files I have lying around usually. I think I like it because it's simple, non-nosense and logging into google docs is a pain. I have it on google apps and i never remember the URL so i have to log into mail, click the icon, etc. Granted I could setup a CNAME but I digress..<p>Maybe I like em more than gDocs b/c they're also a startup..
Spideroak impressed me. It's a service similar to Dropbox, but with more emphasis on privacy. I found their devs really accessible and interesting to talk to.
Github takes the cake for me. It makes reading and finding code a breeze, and for the relatively unexperienced (like me), it has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry for OSS.<p>A Facebook for hackers, I love it.
cloudkick, I think those guys did a great job.<p>Delivered something of value, freemium business model that I believe will work extraordinarily well for them.<p>My hat is off to them! Just wish I would've thought of it first.
Aardvark for potentially kicking off a new way to search (and even if not, for having awesome diction)<p>Kickstarter for being beautiful and the first crowdfunding site that looks like it has a chance to explode.
grooveshark, still wonky interface but its as close to spotify I can find on our shores.<p>..of course I still use dropbox .. who doesn't? I stopped using evernote as I got tired of having to use Wine to run it..
I like the following (may not as cool as some of those listed, but they're great startups and driving real revenue):<p>1. ZenDesk
2. Freshbooks
3. 99designs
not to denigrate the smart people and great work done here, but i think this is a pretty depressing list when looked at from on high. this is the creme of the crop of all the yc hacker intelligentsia? suprisingly banal imhop.