Direct-to-consumer (Companies born from the internet that are bypassing brick-and-mortar retailers, going straight to consumer)

• Warby Parker (Vintage-inspired prescription eyeglasses, but I follow them because I’m hopeful and curious to see if they will survive against the monopoly power  )
• Everlane (luxury clothing design and manufacturing company)
• Bonobos (men’s clothing design and manufacturing company)
• AirBnB (it took a lot of courage to start and fund this business given the obvious brand challenges associated with being unable to control so much of the customer experience)
• Kickstarter (enabling consumers to fund new businesses)
• Etsy (interestingly not that different from eBay except its focus artisan jewelry and crafts)

Web and Marketing Analytics

• Omniture
• Google Analytics
• Adobe SiteCatalyst

Digital

• Voxer (Walkie Talkie application for smartphones. Competitor to What’sApp. Lets you send instant audio, text, photo and location messages to one or a group of your friends.)
• Viddy (Instagram for video)
• Path (private Facebook)
• Tumblr
• Pinterest

Good Fortune 500 companies

• Amazon.com (hire smart, entrepreneurial, people and work them hard and give them the opportunity to test ideas, and the sky is the limit)
• Patagonia (brand strategy is so authentic that employees are allowed to take days off when the surf is ideal)
• Southwest Airlines
• CNN (reinvented business model to accommodate crowd technologies)
• 3M (self-organizing innovation culture that enables them to achieve X% of their revenues from technologies invented in the last Y years)
• Target (super marketers with huge brand equity and appreciation for design)
• USAA (superior customer service)
• American Express (they aren’t waiting for the digital technologies to transform it; rather it is using these technologies to transform the world of consumer and merchant services)
• Wholefoods (employee turnover < 10%.  enough said.)

Business Intelligence and Data Analysis tools