TechCrunch Disrupt NY attracts 18-year-old Aussie entrepreneur

An 18-year-old Australian entrepreneur has previewed a new branding tool for YouTube at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, an annual event that promises to launch the “hottest” start-ups in tech.

TechCrunch, a group-edited tech start-up blog, is currently hosting TechCrunch Disrupt NY, a three-day conference in New York, featuring the Battlefield Startup Competition.

“TechCrunch will be bringing big names to the Disrupt stage and reveal an all-new slate of outstanding start-ups to the Battlefield competition,” the website says.

In addition to the Battlefield competition, TechCrunch Disrupt also plays host to a hackathon, whereby participants “code for 24 hours with over 500 of your new best friends”.

Among those flying the flag for Australian start-ups is 18-year-old Max Mitchell, who is previewing his BUZZcard Branding Tool at the conference.

The tool is an innovative video application designed to help businesses optimise branding for online and mobile applications.

Businesses currently uploading to YouTube can enhance the quality of their video through Mitchell’s Branding Shell Designer Tool.

This allows a business to animate its logo, and add important information such as contact details to enhance usability and effectiveness.

These tools fall under the banner of BUZZcard.com, a company co-founded by Mitchell, which produces video presentation tools optimised for online and mobile marketing.

“We created BUZZcard.com to help businesses make better online video faster and for less investment of time, training and money,” Mitchell said in a statement.

“Our goal was to allow businesses to create more video with less effort so that they could replace most of the static stuff they currently have cluttering up their websites.”

Mitchell pointed to a recent survey by Frost & Sullivan, which shows business video is predicted to grow at a rate of 42% per annum for at least the next five years.

“Google’s hunger for video content, combined with cheap smartphone cameras and free YouTube hosting, is driving business adoption of online video at an exponential rate,” he said.

“With the recent success of Instagram and other apps for the consumer market, BUZZcard has stepped up to help fill the gap in the business market.”

According to Mitchell, the SEO benefits of incorporating video are “just insane”.

“I mean, you have up to 50 times more chance of getting onto page one if you have video over a static page,” he said.

“It’s also becoming a real differentiator for online sales of all types. Video is the ‘try before you buy’, online.”

“The [BUZZcard] idea is simple – you design your own 10-second video intro, overlay and close for your brand using BUZZcard’s online design tool.”

“Then you upload your videos to BUZZcard. BUZZcard brands your video and pushes it up to your YouTube account.’

BUZZcard also delivers a QR code that links smartphones directly to videos.

According to Mitchell, the application has been welcomed by eBay sellers, video bloggers, and the automotive and real estate industries, which use it to make their products stand out online.

There is also potential for the tool to be used for the creation of safety and training videos for a range of industries.