Austin-based iTaggit was featured last week in TechCrunch. iTaggit was founded by David Altounian, who also serves as the Company’s CEO.  Previously Altounian was the founder and CTO of tablet computer maker Motion Computing, and an executive with Dell. He also is an owner of the Austin Wranglers (an AFL team) which we wrote about here.

iTaggit provides online personal asset management by allowing users to catalogue their home belongings by creating online collections with photos and other information about their goods. In an interview with Emily Crawford of American Venture Network, Altounian states: "What we’re trying to create is a Morgan Stanley type of service and brokerage for items." He continued, "We are trying to provide users, businesses and individuals with all the tools they would need to be able to manage, value, find other people, and trade, based on items, not based on dollars and not based on stock, but based on things they have."

iTaggit, which has raised $1.04 million in Series A funding, faces competition from sites such as MyCollectibles.com (a joint effort from ebay and Kaboodle), squirl.info, mythings.com and zebo.com.

In addition to the collectors, who are able to value their goods and find others who collect similar items, the appraisers, who have a market of people looking to have their goods valued, and the stores such as ebay that traffic such goods, insurance companies should appreciate the ease of having people’s items catalogued and valued.  Perhaps in the not so distant future, insurance companies will offer a rebate to users of iTaggit, much in the same way that rebates are offered to home owners with activated alarms.