While at the ETRE conference in Budapest last week, I met with 2 interesting Hungarian startups.:

adApt (based in Budapest) is an online video advertising tool, built on an interesting concept: it draws viewers into ads through games. Based on the fact that Internet users are increasingly zapping out of online ads, they attract viewers by making them choose the go onto the advertiser’s site by promising games and cash/other  rewards. For example, the fastest viewer to answer the question “what color is the Rolex watch displayed on the ad” wins a prize (perhaps a rolex watch for the really lucky ones?…) Adapt widgets can be embedded in search engines,  games, IPTV channels and other media. If you search for a specific product online and there’s a game about it, it can appear discreetly among your search results besides the vendor’s home page result – drive you to play and thus learn about the product.

Mommo.hu (also based in Budapest) is a digital entertainment platform developed by Blogter (another Hungarian company). The online multimedia sharing website (currently in closed betaand only in the Hungarian language), aims to enable development of a community lifestyle portal where users can share various multimedia material (videos, personal photos, celebrities photos, free mp3 ringtones, etc.). There are contests launched in each topic where people can win prizes and fame. The idea of Mommo is to create a Hungarian-oriented social networking portal through submitted content and common topics of interests (eg. celebrity fan club).