TechCrunch Disrupt Start-up Battlefield Live Blog (Round 3)

This is a part of our TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 event coverage. See other rounds from Startup Battlefield here.

#17:56: OK, Round 3. That was a short break! Judges for round 3: Chris Evdemon (Innovation Works), Sebastian Kubler (Taishan Angel Fund), Matthew Prince (CloudFlare), and Si Shen (Papaya Mobile).

Touchpal

#17:57: Up first: Touchpal. Smartphones aren’t smart as phones, but the experience of calling and managing contacts hasn’t changed for a long time. How can you deal with business cards, for example? It’s a pain to type all that in manually. Touchpal creates a mobile version of a business card, which you can then easily trade with anyone else who has the app.

But people change their contact information a lot! In the touchpal app, when you update your info, your friend’s contacts will update automatically. And it will also update your info on various SNS. Also allows you to do status updates; one status can be pushed to multiple SNS, including Twitter, Weibo, Facebook, etc.

Can also set “statuses” for phone calls, so that — for example — you get a warning if you’re trying to call someone who is busy. Instead of calling then, you can mark that number and your app will notify you that the person you’re trying to call is now available so that you can call them back. “Isn’t that cool?” Yeah, it IS pretty cool.

#18:04: No registration required, it integrates with your existing and accounts and contact info in your phone.

#18:05: On to the questions: How will you make money? We may develop VoIP, and would also like to take it offline. Judge: be careful with that, because users need to have a lot of trust in you to give you their contacts. Touchpal: Numbers are uploaded to the cloud, and numbers are matched, but no names or other info is connected.

#18:06: Two users need it for the app to be useful, so how do you reach your initial critical mass? A previous version has 2 million+, and Touchpal Keyboard has 15 million+, so will be using those users. Also, to share info with people who don’t have the app, you can enter their phone number and they’ll get an automatic text inviting them to the service.

Touchpal supports all the major platforms: iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Have filed over ten patents, so their IP is very strongly protected, they say.

Of all the things we’ve seen so far today, Touchpal is the first I could see myself using on a daily basis.

Huohua

#18:07: Next up, Huohua. A way for you to meet up with people in your location who share the same interests you do. (This sounds very similar but isn’t the same as a service i wrote about at chinaccelerator)