From my office in the Columbia Tower I have a great view of the startup community, both literally and in the work that I do. From Pioneer Square to Fremont and beyond, there are exciting things brewing in Seattle. The following is This Is Tech’s list of Seattle Startups to Watch in 2008. These emerging companies are bootstrapping some interesting stuff:

BuddyTV

BuddyTV is a hub of all things television related. Users and the BuddyTV editorial staff comment and chat in real time about their favorite TV shows. The site has built an impressive amount of content. TV fans can congregate using live audio, video and text, which makes the site a compelling place to spend time. With its active community of users, BuddyTV is the type of community that the television networks and other traditional media companies wish they had for themselves.

Fyreball

Building on the groundwork forged by youtube and the recent onslaught of video sharing services, Fyreball has created a social networking site designed for sharing media online. Instead of sending your friends links to your favorite clips and photos online, Fyreball users create a unique webpage (a fyreball) and select which friends they want to invite. Invitees can view and comment on posted videos, and can add their own videos and content in response. Friends invite friends, and the result is a dynamic media rich message board on the topic of your choosing. I have been participating in Fyreball’s beta launch and the site is a great way to kill some time and catch up with friends. Fyreball was founded by a handful of ex-Bungie Studios folks, which reflects well on the company. Bungie is the company behind the Halo series of video games for Microsoft’s xbox and xbox 360 consoles. Halo 2 and Halo 3 are tied in my opinion for the title of greatest video game ever made. Incidentally, Bungie has been recently spun out of Microsoft, and is a company to watch in its own right. They would have made this list, but once you have shipped a few hundred million dollars worth of product, you just don’t qualify as a startup anymore.

Jott Networks

Jott Networks’ business revolves around turning speech into text, a simple concept that is the groundwork for Jott’s personal productivity web application. Jott leverages your mobile phone as an interface for notes, messages and reminders, without the need for complicated mobile phone software. Users interface with Jott by calling the Jott phone number. When you call, Jott uses caller ID information to determine that it is you, and then gives you a number of options using voice prompts. From there you can send SMS messages or email to people in your contacts by dictating a message. Add things to your to do list or set reminders in the same way. Jott’s concept is simple, but the company knows how to tap into its potential. Jott has an architecture that developers can tap into using Jott’s API, meaning that web developers can incorporate Jott’s voice to text / sms functionality into their own applications. If you have a restaurant review site, you can use Jott to allow users to call and dictate the name of the restaurant they are interested, and then get review results from your website in an SMS or email message. Jott is a company that understands the future of web applications and knows how to leverage its business by enabling others to build on what it has started. Further, telephone based services have been getting the attention of big players like Google. Google has been focusing attention on telecommunications based web services with its GOOG-411 free directory assistance, and it’s acquisition of Grand Central last year. This is an industry to watch, and Jott is Seattle’s horse in the race.

Dashwire

Ford Davidson and his team at Dashwire are working on the next killer app for mobile phones, bridging the gap between your cell phone and your computer. Dashwire is a personal web portal for your phone, meaning all your settings, pictures, movies, call history, contacts, speed dial numbers, and applications can be accessed from your desktop. Until you log into your Dashwire account for the first time, it is hard to fully understand how liberating it is to have your phone’s contents accessible though a full size screen and keyboard. Photos and videos taken are automatically uploaded to your Dashwire account, so browsing and sharing these files requires only a few clicks. Another exciting thing about Dashwire is its potential as a backup mechanism. Dashwire backs up your phone settings and information to the web. If you loose your phone, or upgrade, your old settings can automatically be downloaded to your new phone. This takes a lot of the pain out of changing phones. Video tour here.

SEOmoz

SEOmoz is in the search engine optimization business, which seems to be booming. Search engine optimization is the web’s dirty little secret, but is big business. These guys unlock the secrets of a good ranking on Google and people are willing to pay. I haven’t used SEOmoz’s services, but if their own web presence is any indication of their work, they know what they are doing.

Blist

Databases like MySQL and Oracle have a pretty steep learning curve, meaning many companies need dedicated database administrators to set up and keep their databases running propertly. Blist is working to create a web-based database application that is as easy to use as Excel, and they are pretty nearly there. I have been using the beta version of their product and the application is slick. The design is clean and the user interface is intuative. Blist represents a new breed of web applications that look as good as their desktop counterparts. Like a number of new startups, Blist is using Amazon web services as its back end for storage, which means that the application can scale to handle big databases and expanding numbers of users without growing pains. One thing I hope that they add in the future is the ability to tap into the database programatically by offering an API or some way to tap into the database from outside the application. Databases like MySQL or Oracle have a steep learning curve and require a trained database administrator to do the complicated stuff. Blist is easy enough for your average Excel savvy user to create and populate even a complex database, but until users can tap into the database from outside the application Blist won’t replace more full featured database apps. That said, Blist is still in Beta and is adding features at a breakneck pace, so an API is probably on the roadmap. Kevin, is an API in the works?

Zumobi

Zumobi is working to widgetize your mobile phone. Their application is targeted at the Windows Mobile operating system and does wonders to improve that platform’s interface. As a Windows Mobile user and I have been frustrated with how long it takes to pull up relevant information using my HTC 8100. Zumobi has created an application that eliminates the need for a stylus and allows you to install content specific widgets that you find relevant. Zumobi extends the widgetization embraced on the web by companies like Google and Netvibes to the small screen. Writing for mobile devices is challenging. There are differences between devices and limited hardware resources to draw on. Despite the challenges, Zumobi has managed to make great strides with the platform. It will be interesting to watch as the number of widgets grows, and even more so, whether Microsoft acquires the company to incorporate its improvements into the Windows Mobile platform.

Depotpoint

DepotPoint could not be in a better position to take advantage of the down turn in the economy. Even before the foreclosure crisis hit. the team at DepotPoint was working on a full service website for the foreclosure community. Foreclosure properties are typically sold by lenders in private sales, or in public auctions. In either case, these properties don’t typically hit the multiple listing service. Local companies like Zillow and Redfin have turned the real estate industry on its head by moving traditional real estate information from the private MLS database to the public internet. Foreclosure property information, however, is largely paper based, making digitizing this data even more valuable. DepotPoint and its ForeclosurePoint website are working to become the MLS of foreclosure properties, and their timing couldn’t be better.

TalentSpring

TalentSpring is innovating in the job search space by streamlining the resume submission and review process. TalentSpring works to the advantage of both hiring managers and job seekers by ranking and targeting resumes to the right job opportunities. Users can submit resumes to TalentSpring and get automated advice on how to improve the resume and which job categories they are best suited for. From there users are shown other job seekers’ resumes and asked to vote on the best of a side by side comparison. Resumes are ranked and top resumes in each job category are eligible to be sent on to participating companies. Companies win because they get higher quality resumes due to the ranking process. Job seekers win because they can track which companies looked at their resumes and close the feedback loop on what is working and what isn’t.

Imperium Renewables

You may have seen Imperium Renewable’s sign as you drive past Safeco Feild. The clean tech industry is growing fast, and Imperium’s biodesiel products are right in the middle of it. Virgin Atlantic recently flew the first biodesel powered transatlantic flight, which was powered by Imperium’s fuel. Imperium arguably isn’t a startup any more, having been working on alternative fuel since 2004, and until recently planing an IPO, but with the cost of fuel rising and the counter cyclical nature of the clean tech industry, 2008 should be a good year for Imperium, and they are certainly a company to watch.

In the interest of full disclosure, BuddyTV, Dashwire and DepotPoint are clients that I work with. There are a lot of hot Seattle startups that didn’t make this list. If you are working on something interesting, or you have your own favorite picks, let me know in the comments or with an email.