I will have lunch with a Venture Capital Partner today.
We meet from time to time to speak about the latest trends and innovations.

We will speak about interesting StartUps and emerging Businesses. From my point of view here are some companies which are worth watching in 2006:

Blogosphere:
– SixApart
– Technorati

Pay By Touch: The Pay By Touch service is a service that allows you to pay for purchases or cash checks with just the touch of your finger.

Mobile World:
– Semapedia – the physical wikipedia.
– CellFire – mobile couponing
– ScanR – mobile scanner, copier or fax.
– Zogo – mobile online flirting community.
– MobilePlay
– Dijiji – mobile media agency

Financial World:
– Zopa
– Fundable

Online Office Software: The race is on. Here are some companies in the fielf of online office software.
– Zoho Writer: Online Word Processor, Writely – Word Online, Writeboard (See 37 Signals), Bindows – Online Office, Gliffy, NumSum – Online Excel, Zimbra.

Ajax Applications:
– AjaxTrans, very useful translation tool.
– Meebo: Instant Messanging on an online platform. Easy to use behind company firewall or in internet cafes.
– Riya: A online image search with innovative face recognition system.

Knowledge Society:
– Squidoo, everone’s an expert on something.
– DIGG

Beyong Flickr: Bubbleshare, Fotolia.

Merchandising on next level: GoodStorm (Storytelling at its best – See “Easy Ethics Trend“), CafePress, Zazzle, Spreadshirt.

Innovative Technology: nTag – “Ego Badges” for events,

VoIP: Adomo – Voicemail via VoIP

Security: VoiceVault – Voice Recognition,

Online Social Networking 2.0: Passado, VidiLife – Free Video Webcasting for Everybody, Zogo – mobile online flirting community.

Hot or Not:
– Synthetic Genomics
– Woot – one day, one deal.
– MatrixStream – IPTV via Broadband

Blogs to watch:
– VentureBlog
– Silicon Beat

Last but not least – one of the most read Blog worldwide:
PostSecret.