Of the 32 startups presenting their wares at yesterday's Under the Radar conference, only three were named Best in Show. Here are the winners, sorted by category:

“I’d pay for that!” - Podserve (Big in Japan)
“They’ll be acquired.” - TagWorld
“Now that’s a problem solver.” - FilmLoop

I saw Podserve's presentation, learned about FilmLoop at Demofall and missed TagWorld's demo. But, of the presentations I did catch, I was most impressed by Songbird. This is where venture capitalists should put their money.

The combination browser/media player is trying to be the glue that links the disparate online music services to all the different pieces of hardware. Songbird's unique approach to solving the integration problem with a piece of desktop software in a Web world is crazy enough to work in a big way. And Songbird's founder's confidence knows no bounds. Here are some comments of his I scribbled down qucikly in my notebook:

We're an iTunes killer.
The Web browser is a bad word processor with hyper links.
This is a billion dollar opportunity.
It's the Netscape, Mozilla, Explorer of digital media.

Sure, hyperbole like that can be offputting, but Rob Lord has the pedigree to back some of that up. Pictured below, he has co-founded two companies that went on to trade sales and was most recently product manager for Yahoo's music recommendation service.

Interested venture capitalists should be warned, though. Whispers after Lord's presentation had it that he went out to raise venture capital earlier this year on Sand Hill Road, demanded an exorbitant valuation and was rejected. For now, Lord is bootstrapping Songbird. With capital flowing and valuations rising, it seems inevitable that someone will pay up.

For more on the Under the Radar conference, see:
SF Gate
Stowe Boyd
Brian Oberkirch