Tableteer

Jason Baptiste, Onswipe

Launched: June 2011

What Onswipe does: It’s a simple concept—make your website look good on a tablet. With tablet sales estimated to reach 120 million units in 2012 (up from 60 million units in 2011), publishers are scrambling to not only figure out user-friendly ways to present their content on these devices. However, developing custom tablet apps can cost thousands. With a fast and free solution, Onswipe is poised to be the leader in an aggressively growing market.

How it’s changing the game: Many content publishers are facing the huge time and money investment of creating custom apps that will allow users to access their content across any digital platform. Not only does Onswipe technology allow content publishers to automatically optimize a website that was built for point-and-click devices for a touch-and-swipe device within three minutes (yes, three minutes), but they do so for free. Onswipe makes money with an advertising revenue model. And they have changed the game for brands, as well. Unlike the banner ads and pop-ups we associate with digital advertising, Onswipe technology allows for full-page, high-design ads, similar to those that run in national consumer print magazines.

“If Google changed content distribution by how you find information, we want to change it by how you experience it,” says Baptiste. “And then, we put beautiful full-page, magazine-like advertising with that. We see this big gap. There’s $50 billion of missing online media spend that needs to shift there and we don’t think that could have happened until the tablet. That’s the genesis and thesis for the company over the next 5 to 10 years.”

Brands that have purchased campaigns with Onswipe include Chanel, Verizon, and American Express. Their technology can incorporate content from most CMSs as well as sources like Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter, and more.

What’s next: Baptiste became a published author last month with the release of his book, The Ultralight Startup. Baptiste and the company are focused on improving the product, and building their network of publications.

Photography by Jill Lotenberg