Web Assess

Serial Entrepreneur focusing on crowd sourced, social networked content.

[webassess-blog]

Facebook search done right

Ark

http://ark.com/

One of the finalists of TechCrunch Disrupt 2012, Ark is hailed as the solution to the people discovery problem, or rather the people search engine. Ark integrates with Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, RenRen, and others culminating in 1Bn+ profiles. The main UI is simply an advanced search filter on the left and the search results in the center where clicking on results will direct you to view the profile.

First off, this is scary with its privacy implications. I know that all this information is already public and thus they are only scouring what is already viewable, but it is scary to see exactly how much is available and open. Ark does state that they take privacy seriously and really separate what is publicly available and what is private or requires existing connections to view (ie. if you link your Facebook account, your friends' profiles will be more complete). Hopefully this kind of service will shock people enough to take their privacy controls seriously and really control what is being disclosed. So, yes, the responsibility is more on the individual users and Ark is not to blame for what is public, and Ark is only making it apparent just how much people are sharing.

One of the Disrupt panel members asked the best question that is this not simply Facebook search done right? Currently Ark is reliant mostly on Facebook for its information though it claims that other sources are also being used and that certain types of information are more reliable on specific sources, like job information from LinkedIn. But truly, at this point, looking at the UI and the information being returned, it does appear to be only an advanced search functionality layered on top of Facebook. That explains why there are rumors that Facebook had approached Ark earlier on to potentially acquire or hire the founders, since Facebook's search functionality is rudimentary and limited.

The true difficulty going forward is data mapping. How is Ark addressing the problem of matching the user accounts of one individual across the various social networks used? How will they know to link my Facebook, LinkedIn, Meetup, etc accounts all together? My suspicion is that they don't at this point. There is no universal identifier between accounts that is available for them to use in mapping user accounts. That is why it currently feels more like a Facebook search because Facebook remains its main source and additional information is not really integrated into one profile yet. I assume that as more and more people use this service and they explicitly link various accounts to their profile, Ark will then note these account links to improve their profile aggregation.

The question then is how useful is it really now if accounts are not being linked? It still is of use since Facebook's people search is so terrible. The problem of how to find all your friends that currently live in New York City is a chore in Facebook while it is a simple act on Ark. But don't expect to be able to do some really interesting discovery across multiple sources just yet. I doubt you'd be able to search for who has Php/Solr skills (from LinkedIn), went to school at a top tier school (from Facebook), currently living in New York City (from either source). But regardless, being able to search per topic on a single source is pretty useful already.

The interesting question that Ark fumbled on is probably one of the most important- monetization strategy. There are inherent problems of how to generate money from a people search. Ads are the generic go-to and can be targeted based on the search criteria being used. But what other avenues are available? There of course are metrics that can be crunched, but what will those be and who would they be valuable for? Because there is no company/brand presence in a pure people search, I am not sure what kind of information vendors and companies would be interested in purchasing. This is a big problem that Ark faces.

A bigger risk is what happens if Facebook, LinkedIn and each of these social networks decide to improve their latent people search and include better advanced search filters? That would greatly threaten the future of Ark, because I am skeptical of how well they map profiles across content source right now.

Also, the architecture of Ark is currently heavily reliant on the APIs of their partnered social networks. All those advanced queries are being run and answered on the servers of each content source, so Facebook is paying for the answering of the queries. Ark is simply just translating the search criteria into an API call that Facebook can understand.

Holy Ark?

People search done right. Pulls information from Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, RenRen and many other social networks.

Currently feels more like advanced search layer on top of Facebook API because most results are single-source and Facebook being that source.

Main problem is how to map user accounts across networks and thus have a single comprehensive profile to query against. And data mapping also gets scary since it allows people to really track user activity across the entire internet especially if they can link users with Google Plus accounts that already follow user activity across multiple services.

Privacy concerns.  Not Ark's fault that so much personal information is being freely shared by users. Ark does clearly specify what information is publicly available and what is getting pulled because of user connection to the subjects. Hopefully Ark results will make users pause and consider privacy controls on each network they use.

Money money money. Ark is faced with a serious problem of how to monetize this product. It is difficult to rely on ads for a pure people search since users are not looking for products or services but individuals.

Risk of becoming obsolete as social networks improve their own search functionality. Ark may want to pre-empt that by offering advance search solutions to each of the networks.

No doubt this is an interesting product and the implications of this is huge. They are trying to break down the silos of user data that each of the social networks have and to really map user accounts across content source. We shall have to wait and see how successful they will be at addressing this main difficulty of account mapping.

[webassess-blog]

Attack of the Clones!

Wondershake, Gauss, Banjo, Bizzabo, Uberlife, etc.

http://wondershake.com/en/

http://getgauss.com/

http://ban.jo/

http://www.bizzabo.com/

http://uberlife.com/

I already talked about the similarities and differences of key players in the space of using mobile apps to notify users when people of similar interests and mutual friends are close-by. We know this is a hot spot and it's definitely demonstrated by the number of startups pursuing it, as this list shows.

To be honest, I am not going to download all of these to test and compare. I am not one of those types of people that would even be all that interested in these kinds of apps. But what I do find interesting is how similar they all are and wonder what will determine the stand-out winner in this arena.

To mention a couple of differences:

Bizzabo is hailed as focused on events, but I've mentioned Qrio.us that also is trying to solve the problems of this space. What would be really helpful is to allow input of what specific resource you are looking for or what specific topic you'd like to discuss and search for people based on that. But that would require contant that can be queried to answer that, like LinkedIn current job role, and interests.

Uberlife takes a different approach as it seeks to make people active and to be the mavens and connectors in the room. It encourages individuals to assess who is in the current vicinity and to then help make introductions and connect people with one another. By making those connections, one's score increases.

But then you have some pretty similar apps that get tough to find the differentiating factor. Gauss was also at the latest SXSW and yet we know that Highlight was more the darling of that stage. I also mentioned that FriendThem was also at SXSW and they also went a bit under the radar there.

I know people are very curious about this whole "people discovery" field. Many pundits in the industry are calling it the next billion dollar market. But I believe that there are way too many avenues for people discovery and we are currently seeking apps that are merely scratching the generic surface. It is surprising for me to wonder whether this generic approach may not be the best way, and that more focused tools may be better.

For example - business contacts:

1. Allow people to specify who they want to meet (front-end developers, rails guru, auto-cad expert, etc.)

2. Specify topical interest - (SEO, moblie music, recommendation engines, floral arrangements, environmental economics, etc.)

3. Use those entered values to query against other user's LinkedIn profile data and entered data to suggest key people to interact with at a given event or location.

4. Provide information about mutual contacts (or suggested contact path) to help facilitate initial contact. Maybe even allow a feature to text that mutual contact to help make that initial introduction via a phone call or text message.

In general -

1. Privacy control. Let users specify whether to allow the app to run in the background and automatically broadcast profile information or to require check-in to trigger profile sharing with others in the same location/event.

2. Have privacy controls on what is displayed of user profiles, who can access what on those profiles (ie. friend of friends vs. unconnected).

3. Controls on contacting/messaging. Avoid disclosing too much information that would allow others to potentially stalk or to be able to find users on Facebook and other services without consent from the individual.

4. Anyone think all of this is like that eHarmony commercial with the guy talking about a girl liking soccer and that it better be World Cup all year round or they'll have problems? Similar issue here when interests are matched and there's really no gauge as to the depth of interest.

5. Definitely let users explicitly specify when the service is active. It may be best to set default shutdown timers, say it will stop searching/broadcasting after 3 hrs of last action. Thought being, people may want to be social and meet people in one setting but not all the time.

At the end of the day, my thought tends to be, that I have plenty of great friends and it's just getting harder to coordinate spending quality time with the ones I already have. I am less interested in meeting random casual friends because of that. Sure, I understand there are plenty of reasons when people are more open to meeting new people for social reasons, like moving to a new city or their close friends moving away. But frankly, when it comes to casual, social connections, I allow it to happen organically through introductions to friends of friends and would not rely on an app to suggest random people.

But this is different when it comes to business contacts and relationships. In those cases, I would love to meet people fitting the right interests or working in specific industry/roles. And in this realm, I can see many people needing all the help they can get, because if they already knew people of those roles and interests, they probably wouldn't be looking. So, I can see this being a great tool for conferences and events, someone listing themselves as an investor looking for mobile app startups in 'people discovery' should get recommendations of people working on mobile apps or at least people seeking to meet investors. The issue to solve is that there are plenty of items to match people on that is not easily grabbed and parsed from Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare and Twitter.

I also, have never used these apps successfully. I mean, I have at conferences and meetups sent messages to people I find interesting based on their bios to set up a chance to meet in person. But that is something very different than doing that all in real time when at a given spot. I can imagine things getting awkward if too much information is being shared. Think that commercial of a man and woman at a speed dating function and she keeps bringing up items that the guy had posted on his profile. I know it's an extreme example but man, that sounds like a terrible thing to happen.

Maybe we should keep it real basic. Instead of sharing all that profile information that app should just share what is matched, like "Paul G - ask me about my mobile app," "Karen L. - ask me about Ruby on Rails." That way all that is told is what should be the conversation starter and the rest people and learn naturally through conversation.

[webassess-blog]

Beep, beep, blip, blip...

Sonar

http://www.sonar.me/

Sonar launched at TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 - May and beat the current darlings of Highlight and Glancee to market. They all do pretty much the same thing, enabling users to check out who is close by based on shared interests and mutual friends. But the big difference is that Sonar relies on check-ins as opposed to a continuous background GPS broadcast.

One nice feature about Sonar is that even though it requires check-ins to allow others to search for you, the user can view a list of people already checked into a location before they decide to check in. That is a feature that is lacking from clone, CrowdedRoom. Also, Sonar is not event focused and thus interfaces with FourSquare and lets users check into locations as opposed to needing continual input of event information.

Sonar closed a $200k seed round and currently employs 8-9 people. Though given the hype of Highlight and Glancee this year, it will be difficult for Sonar to really differentiate itself and position itself as the app to beat in this space.

I've been holding off the discussion about check-in vs. gps broadcasting, but I might as well talk about it now. GPS broadcasting used by Highlight, Glancee, and FriendThem opens the doors to some scary privacy abuse. Sure, they include privacy controls to determine who gets to see your information and contact you, but regardless, these apps are triggering your phone to continually broadcast your location. At least relying on check-ins gives you explicit control over when people can see your profile and information.

Checking in, of course, is an extra step that can be a hassle since it needs users to actively search for their location and trigger the action. But that is rather a small price to pay for enhanced security. But we know that most people are lazy and don't really consider the security implications. So, let's focus on another drawback to GPS broadcasting, that it eats up battery life since the app is continuously running in the background.

Also, GPS broadcasting apps have a more difficult time collecting useful data. With check-ins, the user is explicitly selecting what location they are at and this is a simple data point that can be aggregated and potentially sold to vendors or marketers. You can do something similar with GPS broadcasting apps, but it would require a technical challenge of creating these 'check-in' data points automatically whenever a user enters a target location. And this is what I mean about the scariness of privacy and tracking.

The check-in model also allows for additional functionality as shown by FourSquare. It is easier for advertisers and vendors to tack on deals and bonuses that are triggered when a user checks into a given location.

Ping:

Sonar does exactly the same thing as Highlight and Glancee, interfacing with linked accounts of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and FourSquare to suggest people to meet based on shared interests and mutual friends.

The key difference is Sonar requires check-ins while other services are using continuous GPS broadcasting to show people nearby.

Much more control and privacy with check-in vs. GPS broadcasting.

Business model is similar to all the other services, but I believe it is more simplistic to achieve these revenue streams using a check-in model.

It is obvious that I am a supporter of the check-in model mainly due to privacy concerns. I do not think people should continually seek what is quick and easy and sacrifice control. Also, on the technical difficulty and business model side of things, the check-in model is much simpler and data is more easily collected. Furthermore, there are plenty of useful functionality that has been proven to work for check-ins (a la FourSquare) that would be a challenge to implement with GPS broadcasting apps. But at the end of the day, I would not be using any of these services as I tend to meet people naturally and am not interested to rely on some recommendation app. Friend would naturally introduce me to other friends if they think our personalities match or if we have similar interests, I don't need an app to suggest those encounters for me.

*Edit* 5/23/12 - I spoke too soon. Sonar has released its new updates at this year's TechCrunch Disrupt. It now follows the same approach as Highlight and Glancee, running continuously in the background. I understand that this seems like the killer of the check-in but I am wary.

[webassess-blog]

Highlighting at a Glance?

Highlight, Glancee

http://highlig.ht

http://www.glancee.com/

Arguably the app to beat in this sphere, the media darling of SXSW 2012, Highlight is a mobile app that helps people meet people of similar interest or having mutual friends. Similar to FriendThem and Glancee, Highlight is an app that runs constantly in the background that continuously broadcasts the user's location and thus allows users to find one another based on location without check-in. Yet where Highlight is only available on iPhone at this point, Glancee launched earlier and is available for both iPhone and Android.

The use and controls of both Glancee and Highlight are pretty similar. It uses linked networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to pull relevant information to help recommend people for you to meet. This is based on a mix of interests as well as mutual friends. As of March, Highlight did not integrate with Foursquare, but that may be changing in the near future. But frankly, because neither Highlight nor Glancee require check-ins, Foursquare functionality is not truly necessary.

Focusing on Highlight, I must say that they need to do something about their logo. It is simply annoying and no one wants to be looking at that fuzzy eyesore. But beyond that point, a big comment that has been stated continuously is that Highlight drains batteries much faster than Glancee. This seems like a big issue with SoMo apps that needs to be addressed. Also, given the availability of cross-platform development tools, one has to wonder why Highlight launched with only iPhone availability. Again, it says something that Glancee is also offered on Android.

As mentioned before, Glancee was acquired by Facebook at the beginning of May. It is apparent that Facebook realizes the importance and potential of the SoMo (social mobile) movement. And being a cynic, I am unsurprised that this privacy quagmire would draw the interest of Zuckerberg. But more to the point, there are probably a handful of good reasons why Facebook went for Glancee over Highlight.

Highlight has been the media darling due to investment by well known tech bloggers and contacts. This pool of investors would increase the asking price for acquisition making Glancee a cheaper buy.

Glancee is already available on both iPhone and Droid.

Glancee consumes energy while running in background.

Otherwise, the functionality is similar between Highlight and Glancee.

Glancee supposedly touts more privacy controls over what information is shared and to whom.

I understand making tasks easier, like finding people and adding them to your friends on these social networks. But is it just me or are we not sacrificing quite a bit of privacy and control in order to gain these benefits? I have mentioned the difference in approach between these location broadcasting apps and those requiring check-in and a big part of that difference is in the control. I prefer not to constantly broadcast my location and make it available for others to access and view. It is very plausible that these companies can collect this data and find other means of revenue generation that would not sit well with me.

I do hope that these apps give users the option of how they wish to use them, letting users specify whether to broadcast or to check-in. That should not be too difficult given Foursquare functionality. Frankly, I do not understand many of the event check-in apps like Qrio.us and Sonar that don't just pull locations in from Foursquare but aspire to have specific events entered into their system. Yes, I understand that it is more specific given a particular event, but it does require quite a bit more work as opposed to simply interfacing with Foursquare API.

Stalkerware:

Highlight and Glancee are similar apps that launched around the same time and were the darlings of SXSW 2012. Both are 'social mobile' (SoMo) apps that aid users in finding people to meet based on similar interests and mutual friends. These interests and friends are pulled in from linked social network accounts: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.

Both rely on running in the background to constantly broadcast the user's location allowing others to search for them based on location. Thus it allows searches based on proximity as opposed to check-ins.

Both are going to aggressively consume battery life, but Highlight has been noted as being a bigger consumer.

Highlight is iPhone only, Glancee is available for both iPhone and Android.

Facebook acquired Glancee at the beginning of May.

Again, there are so many apps in this space right now. They range from general apps like these two to event specific ones to dating ones, to any other niche you can imagine. It's still too early to tell which will be the winner in the end, but it will be interesting to see if Facebook can integrate their latest acquisitions successfully. I guess they have plenty of money to help them do that given their IPO today.

[webassess-blog]

Crowded Space, CrowdedRoom

CrowdedRoom

http://crowdedroom.com

IAC's CrowdedRoom is another simple location-based app to help users find persons of interest. Users register with CrowdedRoom and are recommended to link their Facebook account and other accounts like LinkedIn and Twitter, so the app can pull the users' interests and information from those services. Then users search for the event/location and then 'check-in' and are presented with limited information of other people who have checked into the same space and that match some interest algorithm.

Sounds basic enough. You may wonder why I even both mentioning this app. I am discussing this app because it is simple and does not come close to what other comparable apps offer yet is stepping into all sorts of the same privacy land mines. Basically, this is an example of what not to do and it is no surprise that internet conglomerate IAC is developing this.

CrowdedRoom pulls lots of information from Facebook, including what you might not thing is important, like places you've worked at, schools you've attended, etc. Then based on the information it has pulled, CrowdedRoom runs some algorithm to match people and suggest who you might be interested in meeting. Not only is this risky and suspect in terms of privacy, but CrowdedRoom also allows users to message one another without much privacy controls. In essence, CrowdedRoom is falling into all the same pitfalls that Glancee and Highlight were facing when it comes to privacy concerns. At least Glancee did implement controls over who can search for you and to control who can message, but my understanding is CrowdedRoom is so new that it has not addressed these concerns.

In the last entry, I discussed the difference between GPS-based apps and check-in apps. CrowdedRoom is much more limited in that it is based on check-ins. Check-ins is not a great way to approach this geo-location service since it requires an additional active step for each user to find the event/location and check-in before the app is even useful to them. Not only do users need to have the app installed, they then need to check in every time and only then will the search results show others who went through those steps. Needless to say, there is also the extra step of needing to input events/locations. These are problems faced by all similar 'check-in' apps like Qrio.us and Foursquare.

I did get a chance to talk with one of the CrowdedRoom members at Internet Week HQ and asked him about additional filters to help find people of interests. I was interested whether it could be a useful business tool by specifying what one's role is and what kinds of people they would be interested in meeting at a given event. Consider, a trade show where you are interested in finding 3D printer manufacturers working with plastic substrates. CrowdedRoom is not the app for that, because it is limited to only match interests that users have posted on Facebook, Twitter, and other services. CrowdedRoom's focus is only social, to recommend people of similar interests.

Crowd:

People recommendation based on check-in location, based on interfaced interests from Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn.

Check-In - requires users to first find the event/location before even seeing results. Different approach than GPS based services.

Pulls all sorts of information from Facebook, even information that is not pertinent, like attended schools, etc. Risk of privacy complaint.

Allows messaging to people found. Another privacy risk if privacy preferences are not well established.

Only social focused, not good for business/professional use. It does not allow you to enter additional filters to find people of interest. Results are based only on what is posted on the integrated services like Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn.

Unattractive UI. Considering the UIs of Highlight and Glancee, CrowdedRoom has a very unappealing UI.

Money does not solve the main issues. CrowdedRoom is operated by internet conglomerate IAC. It was throwing money around by offering $10 per download of the app to Internet Week attendees. They are throwing fuel on the fire hoping that it will ignite, but frankly, the flame has not even taken to the kindling yet.

Again, the business model for this is limited. Maybe CrowdedRoom will partner with Match and develop that mobile dating app that we all expect will emerge. But as of right now, there is no real revenue stream for services like this.

I know I said that this is still a relatively new space, but it is already getting pretty crowded and CrowdedRoom feels like a late entry. As stated, CrowdedRoom is facing many of the same issues that Glancee and Highlight had faced in the past and thus it is hard to gauge it fairly since they have not addressed issues that are known, particularly regarding privacy. It is a wonder that so many companies and people are investing themselves into these simple/shallow apps.

[webassess-blog]

Right here, right now...

FriendThem

http://www.friendthem.com/

I do feel that I should do this space justice by devoting a couple of entries to it. I have come across so many mobile apps about facilitating meeting and networking leveraging interfaces to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and using location based services to simplify meeting people in the real world. I've previously written about Qrio.us, but I was not aware at that time just how many of these services exist.

The take-away from this year's SXSW has been a couple of these mobile services, particularly Highlight. But other similar services are CrowdedRoom, Bizzaboo, Glancee, Sonar.me, etc. You may have heard that Facebook recently acquired Glancee at the beginning of May. Evidently this is a hotly contested and very desirable service.

So, what is this all about? At the heart of it is to enable users to easily meet and 'friend' people they meet in the real world. That is why I have chosen to start my writing with FriendThem. Friendthem only interfaces with Facebook, does not pull in any interests or any additional information from Facebook. All it does is use each user's gps location from their phone to allow others on that same app to find them easier and thus friend them on Facebook with more ease. Instead of needing to search through hundreds of search results to friend "John Smith" that is standing opposite of you, as long as both John and yourself have FriendThem app accounts, you can simply search by proximity to yourself and pick "John Smith" from the results. To explain it in the most basic way, it's searching for people based not on name or email, but rather their location within a couple feet around you.

Having spoken to the team of FriendThem at their Internet Week HQ booth, I find their product pretty shallow and at risk from the other players in this space. But I do have to admire their refusal to risk privacy and pull interests and other information from Facebook. But it is very likely that Facebook could easily add this feature into their own mobile app, to search by geo-location. Then you have consider whether it is complicated enough for Facebook to purchase or whether they would just add it directly. Or maybe that Glancee satisfies this function enough.

Let's address what differentiates FriendThem. GPS based vs. check-in based. This means that their software needs to continually monitor and track the location of its users and calculate distances from people making search queries. Check-in approach is much easier since it only requires an initial GPS call to find events/locations nearby in which to check-in and then the search results are only those that have already checked-in to that same event/location. Apps like Highlight and Glancee also use GPS while FourSquare, Qrio.us, and CrowdedRoom utilize check-ins.

The other big difference I mentioned is that FriendThem does not pull any interest information from Facebook and thus cannot recommend anyone to meet to the user. It is only a tool to friend someone you have already met and are still in proximity with.

The issue I tend to have with all of these apps is that it requires the other person to also have that same app for it to be useful. So, if "John Smith" is not already on FriendThem, then trying to use FriendThem to find him is going to be useless. Same with many of the other services. I do believe that this space is still relatively new, and that's why there are so many similar service jocking for dominance. Maybe Facebook's acquisition of Glancee will skew the battle.

Friend?

Most basic function - search for Facebook user based on their immediate proximity to you. Will return users of FriendThem within a couple of feet of your current location so you can easily 'Friend' them.

Privacy respected in that there is no additional functionality. There is no need to pull interests from Facebook as this app does not suggest people to meet nor does it allow users to message each other. The idea is that you are already talking to the other person you are searching for and simply want to friend them quickly and easily.

Technically, it is a bit more complex as it is GPS based, needing to track the location of its users. That can get a bit scary as it means people are getting continually tracked instead of using check-ins to match people.

Space is still relatively new, but Highlight has been hailed as the break-out app of SXSW 2012 and Facebook acquired Glancee marking tough competition for FriendThem.

Business Model- Ad-based app, but I highly doubt that there could be enough page views to cover costs. The whole point of this app is to make it easier and thus less page clicks to find the person you are looking for.

What surprises me the most about this app is that they are willing to pay to demo and present at SXSW and Internet Week NYC. As I've mentioned their business model is shallow and unsustainable, so it strikes me as silly that they are willing to blow thousands to try to gain exposure. For a simple service like this, it will never scale or get really big. Even if they got a good amount of Facebook users to rely on it to friend people in-real-time, I still doubt there will be enough traffic to be that profitable.

[webassess-blog]

Here Milo!

Milo

http://milo.com

Started back in 2008, Milo was acquired by eBay in Dec. 2010. What Milo does is aggregate in-store inventory from various vendors like Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Gamespot, etc. It was hailed as the competition to Google Shopping when it first appeared and started gaining traction. But what has happened to it?

This is a perfect example of a project/startup that found an exit and subsequently died. If you take a look at the site now, there is not much change from when eBay first purchased it a year and a half ago. Even more astonishing, the information still loads pretty slowly. I assume that during the load, it is making real-time calls to the various vendors to check inventory, but it may be better to only check it when the user specifically clicks on a given object and not when first populating search results.

So, why am I even mentioning this website when it's years after it was acquired? Simply that I saw an ad for this online and was curious what changes have been made. Surprisingly, not too much from what I recall.

I will say that this is definitely a future need, to be able to tell where inventory is at any given time. Milo approaches this by pulling the inventory information off e-commerce sites that have that information. Is this any better than how Google Shopping does it by relying on vendor datafeeds? Yes, it may be more accurate if the vendor e-commerce sites are fully integrated with store systems. But the technical requirements are much more demanding in that Milo needs to send out queries to multiple e-commerce sites and then aggregate the returned value. It isn't necessarily all that difficult though once you have successfully mapped the products from the participating vendor.

But the issue I have is that Milo's reach is still fairly shallow. When searching for books, you really only get Barnes and Noble results, when looking for video games only Gamestop results. That's not surprising since those tend to be the monopolies that exist, but when searching products, you still tend to only get one or two stores to compare from.

All of this is based on the difficulty of mapping objects and matching then between stores. It is much easier to simply take results from each vendor and present them as separate objects without worrying about duplication. But without mapping, it means that there is no way to price compare or to truly find the closest location for a given product.

What is a better way to handle this? An inventory software needs to be developed that integrates with any in-store register that then automatically uploads the information online. The approach is from in-store as opposed to aggregation from outside. This approach would be similar to how OpenTable integrates directly with numerous reservation systems directly.

Fetch!

Founded in 2008, acquired by eBay Dec. 2010 - Local search for in-store in-stock inventory. Pulls information from various vendor e-commerce sites.

Still has not addressed difficulty in mapping objects. Meaning, most objects only have a single brand of stores listed, even for commonplace items like a phone. Instead of consolidating all results under one listing, Milo still tends to only display one vendor per object. (classic example being an iPhone listed only at EB Games: http://milo.com/iphone-4s-16gb-for-att-black-gamestop-premium-refurbished-for-electronics_20778125)

Does not have listings from small vendors as there is no system for small vendors to report their inventory in real time.

Given the last two issues, this service is not useful since it is only reporting the large chain stores that users would probably already assume.

Only focusing on local search and not even doing that particularly well, means this service is nowhere near as useful as Google Shopping.

At a price tag of $75M back in Dec. 2010, one would think that eBay would be invested to really figure out the big issues that this business faces. But frankly, I do not see them focusing much here. As stated, the real solution that will solve everything is to make a point-of-sale inventory product. A software that integrates with whatever inventory software that may already run in-store that then periodically posts results online. We already hear of such systems like what they use at Walmart to track in-store inventory, so it needs to be replicated to allow any vendor to use it.

[webassess-blog]

Playlists for all

Songza

http://songza.com

I have not done a true comparison of similar apps in the past, but given the discussion about Turntable.fm and how it appears to already be declining, it got me to try out a couple other music options. I already use Last.fm, Pandora, and Grooveshark to some degree, depending on what I am in the mood for. Last.fm and Pandora fit similar needs of providing a 'radio' station based on a particular artist I enter. Grooveshark is when I am looking for something specific or if I just want to load an entire album or a playlist someone else created. But let us look at the idea of playlists.

Songza in essence is listening to music based on playlists that people generate. Instead of relying on an active sychronous 'DJ' with Turntable.fm, Songza is basically curated playlists that users then search for and play. The interesting approach by Songza is that instead of searching for playlists only by artist or genre or user, Songza also recommends playlists based on mood, time, setting, or atmosphere. It allows lists for "chillin' with a beer," "relaxing to some jazz," or even "training for a marathon." Basically it understand what reasons people are creating playlists and makes it easier to search lists to find what fits.

That being said, this is nothing innovative. Sure, if any of the other sites, especially Grooveshark focused more on playlists and allowing people to search more easily for them, it could debunk the usefulness of Songza. But with its focus and intuitive UI, Songza does make creating and sharing playlists to be much easier and thus users can enjoy curated songs in an asynchronous fashion.

I will admit that a main reason I am actually using Songza these days is because that it is still considered a startup as opposed to an established service. Therefore, they are still focused on gaining users and have not pushed the monetization model. It is still unlimited play with no commercials. You could leave the service going 24/7 ad-free at this point. I am sure that they will need to change that in the near future and follow the same model as all other music sites.

Sadly, this is a highly competitive market and it is difficult to fight against larger incumbents. Spotify has been the newer service to beat, since they offer on-demand listening like Grooveshark, allows social sharing of playlists to Facebook/Twitter, has a huge selection of songs, and integrates to Last.fm and other apps to make music discovery easier. But Spotify is a fee-based model and if you are looking to consume for free in a more passive manner, Songza fits for now.

We all know that music is dominated by oligopolies and the largest difficulty for these services will be when labels and studios start squeezing them on licensing and royalties. Not only is the squeeze a pain point, but the competition of landing licensing agreements may be the factor that crowns the winner in the market. Whoever can find a sustainable/profitable model that all labels agree to and thus that will have the largest collection of songs can simply build additional features to aid in song discovery or to make UI easier.

Sure, we focus on the focus and UI at this point as consumers, moving from the iTune-like Grooveshark to passive options like Pandora and Songza to hybrids of active/passive like Spotify. They all have their uses but I do believe that we have still yet to see which can truly be sustainable going forward.

Play:

Music consumption and discovery focused on Playlists. It is all about listening to playlists that others have created and being able to amend some playlists that are open to editing.

Currently still totally free and ad-free.

Uninterrupted endless play. No time limit.

Not terribly differentiated. Grooveshark and Spotify also allow the sharing of playlists and posting them to Facebook/Twitter. Songza just focuses on the playlist as the approach towards music and thus has a better UI and approach to playlist managment and sharing.

Tough market. Decreasing margins as labels squeeze services for higher licensing fees.

Saturation and fighting larger, better funded competition. Spotify being current leader.

Still unproven which service has the most sustainable business model.

Interestingly, Songza has been around since 2007 but I have only recently heard about them. I guess a couple of people noticed this service at the recent NYTech Day and word has started to spread a bit. But I feel that people are trying this service also because it has yet to impose limits, ads or fees. I do suspect that Songza is forced to follow the model of Pandora/Last.fm and others, that people may not be so keen on its service as it is nothing terribly new and innovative.

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Virtual Club or scrub?

Turntable.fm

http://turntable.fm/

Turntable allows users to gather in virtual rooms as avatars with a 'DJ' (the one creating the playlist of songs) where they can socialize with others in the room. There was an article http://www.inc.com/magazine/201205/burt-helm/turntable-founders-sxsw-where-did-our-love-go.html that was commenting on how this startup has already peaked and people have wondered why.

Main issue is I believe you need to make a product that is simple and at the core of human behavior. Music is even more difficult because the space is so saturated. We have: radio – curated music often most popular songs, Pandora/Spotify – radio hybrid where you select an artist and they feed you similar songs, Grooveshark/mp3s – personalized with total control of what to listen to. This is an array of basic consumption from the most active (selecting all songs yourself) to semi-active (selecting artist or genre) to passive (radio).

Turntable’s approach is to have one active user acting as the ‘DJ’ and having others join in to listen. That requires one continually active user and the rest to be semi-active. But frankly, it is all too much work, when the active ‘DJ’ ends, you then need to look for the next person to listen to. And there are plenty of studies that say we do not particularly enjoy the same tastes as friends, so relying on our Facebook graph for people to listen to is limited and a crapshoot. It’s easier to listen to the playlists that others created on Grooveshark or radio stations they use on Jango/Pandora, since then it’s not ‘live.’

The use of avatars is also a model based on the luxury of time. It requires all those people to be actively participating at that given moment. But there is just so much other things to do these days that to expect lots of users to actively consume music in avatar form is unlikely. This is an effort to take the interaction and feel of a physical club to a virtualized world, but it just won’t work.

So, it’s a model that is a fad. People try it out, see what it is like and move on. Unless you can somehow get a bunch of professional DJs to constantly be active to attract users continually, the model won’t work.

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Paperlex

Paperlex

https://paperlex.com/

From the last NYEBN meetup, Paperlex was a favorite amongst the investor panel. Small surprise given that Paperlex has been making the circuit, I saw them demo at NYTech Meetup in Feb. So, what is the hype about Paperlex?

First off, let's be clear of what it is not. It is not a service that offers contract templates or other legal documents, like LegalZoom or any of those other services.

Paperlex is a service allowing users to manage all of their contracts and legal documents through all stages of the workflow. Using the dashboard, the user can quickly see what contracts are at what stage, draft, pending signature, complete, etc. And even more important, it allows for version control, so that people no longer need to email versions back and forth and can access it all online.

This service was develop by lawyer/contract managers for business contract managers. The sample use case is for a company that handles hundreds of NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreements) like an entertainment agency.

Currently the service is free, as the team tries to gain traction, but the business model going forward is tiered payment based on quantity of documents being handled as well as additional features.

At the heart of it, this is a classic example of how people are using technology to improve the workflow problems they encounter in their day-to-day jobs. It is a wonder how much people have gotten by though sending files back and forth via email. But frankly, the entire process sounds similar to any process workflow, like purchase orders, or any b2b contractual agreement. I am sure that Paperlex can figure some way to create a generic version to offer to other industries that also have documents they want to track.

Paper:

Manage entire contract workflow using a dashboard showing the status of all documents in their various stages. Version control to offer a better approach to edits.

Very basic idea of streamlining one specific business process, contract management. Very simple to replicate. I doubt there is much IP for this and thus I can see other services incorporating this feature into their offerings. At the core, it is simply the ability to assign and sort files based on the status. And when it comes to the version control, it is a pale imitation of what programmers have used for ages, version control like subversion or git.

Invest-able? I cannot see this product making much money. As stated, this idea should be easy to replicate. That being said, Paperlex does offer the software as a white label solution, allowing developers to embed the software seemlessly into existing platforms.

From my experience with SAP, I know that there have been work to deal with contracts, specifically leasing contracts in terms of status and providing a dashboard to give a quick view of all documents based on the stage of the process they are at. Sure, if the company does not use an ERP solution and needs a lightweight product to handle contract management, then I guess Paperlex fits.

Not a "big" idea, more a simple immediate solution to a specific problem.

I understand the value that these small solutions offer to antiquated processes, but I can't help judge their narrow vision on things. Maybe it is the MVP to improve the entire process of dealing with contracts or version control of documents, but as of right now, the focus is too narrow and the scope too small. But sure, this is what you would term a dime stock, that it's cheap and it will generate money albeit at a lower rate. Sure you can invest in it, but it won't be fluctuating too much.

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Meetings from anywhere to anywhere

Mighty Meeting

http://mightymeeting.com

The undisputed star of the latest NYEBN Startup Battlefield is Mighty Meeting. Though the competition was unfair given that this startup is looking to fund their Series A as opposed to Seed round and it has significant traction after being around for over a year. Mighty Meeting is a conferencing app that enables users to push their slide/document/video from one mobile device to any number of other mobile devices across vast distances.

In short distances with a number of devices below 6, the user can simply enable bluetooth to share the files directly from the source device, but when numbers increase over 6 or distances are increased, the service allows users to upload the file onto a cloud server and thus any number of devices can stream the presentation live from anywhere. Or, with the most recent integration with Box, users can stream the file from their linked Box accounts.

What exactly does this mean and who is it useful for? The most productive use case for this app is when a meeting is to be held with sales personnel that are scattered across the country. Imagine that any sales rep can then view the meeting on their iPad. Also, that same sales rep could use Mighty Meeting in their pitch to potential clients by giving the client the iPad and using their smart phone to trigger the actions. Beyond sales and business use, this app also has great uses in the realm of education, allowing people to partake in the same discussion/lesson in real time.

But the most attractive use for this application is to simplify loading of content from a computer onto a mobile device. Instead of having to deal with the file managers of smart phones or the tablet, by emailing the file to one's mighty meeting address, those files can then be accessed from those mobile devices without needing to permanently store them.

The business model is simple, after a 14-day free trial, the use of this service is $4.99 per user per month.

But the it doesn't stop at simply the meeting, Might Meeting now offers the Mighty Team product that enables team collaboration through joint messaging, voice conferencing and file sharing.

Mighty:

Mobile App focused presentation and conferencing. Allows for simple access to presentation files from any smart phone or tablet with app installed, where user simply needs to email the file to their Mighty Meeting address. Also allows for one device to control the slides/video to all other connected devices.

Use of bluetooth for smaller number means files can be streamed instantly. Use of cloud server allows for any number of connections from any distance. But audio from the controller may not be available yet.

Definitely useful for any person that tends to present slides or documents on a mobile device, particularly for sales reps to share documents or videos with clients. Taken a step further, instead of needing to trigger actions directly on the tablet presented to the client, the sales rep can now trigger the actions on their phone and it will correspond on the connected tablet.

Business model is totally viral, in that each user that wants to join/connect needs to create an account and thus pay $4.99 after the 14-day trial period. That being said, it's understandable that as people use Mighty Meeting and seek to share their documents with others, it will get others to start using the app as well.

This team of engineers aren't stopping with only the Mighty Meeting product, they have released Mighty Teams that is a collaboration tool for teams to share messages, voice conferencing, and documents.

That being said, I don't see that this app will be used much by the average person, since all that is required is to upload a slide to Slideshare or a video onto Youtube to share with whoever they want. This may not be a billion dollar business, but the usefulness and need for such a solution is undeniable.

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Back from hiatus

NY Tech Day

I took a break from this collection to prepare Weflect for launch at the New York Tech Day 2012 on April 19th. So, for my first foray into the public, these are the thoughts I had.

First off, there were over 160 exhibitors, so you can imagine the size of the space and the sheer number of the presenters. The layout and the power were great, but what suffered was the wireless internet connection. It was never up at all the entire day, so to even have anything to show, I had to tether my laptops to my smartphone. But that still meant I could not truly demo my site but rather kept static images of the landing page and of my profile page.

Technical difficulties aside, lessons learned from an expo is that an attractive display draws the crowds, pretty self-evident. Across the aisle from me was IRAMarket, a basic marketplace to get users to roll over their 401k to IRAs. Their secret was that they offered slices of pie as part of their marketing gimmick of getting 'a piece of the pie.' To my right there was MyStream, a music app that enables users to share what they are currently listening to with up to 8 people closeby through bluetooth or many more through a wireless connection. Their booth may not have been so flashy, but their focus was enough to draw the crowds. To my left was KnoClothing, a web store for graphic t-shirts that gives proceeds to help the homeless. Their display was quite interesting, using brown paper bags as a table cloth, having an array of t-shirts laid out and some 3-D letters spelling 'KNO'.

Then you had IvyDate, an exclusive dating site to my diagonal. Their focus on dating drew crowds as well. To my other diagonal, you had another one-man team with a product that allows users to copy and paste anything between devices. Sadly he did not get much attention as his table was as bare as mine.

Another unfortunate fact, was that since I was manning the booth by myself, I did not get a chance to check out the other tables and exhibitors. And frankly, if I had just gone around talking with the people at tables, I may have ended up speaking to more people than I did stationary manning my exhibit.

That being said, I found that it was helpful to approach people and pitch my product. There is definitely a lot of body language and gauging who might be open to hear the pitch. So, all-in-all it was quite enjoyable. There were definitely a couple moments when someone 'got' the idea of what I am trying to do and really got enthusiastic.

Exhibitors ranged the spectrum at NYTD. I will continue to assess the various startups that exhibited in the near future.

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Patient Portal

Patient Communicator

http://www.patientcommunicator.com/

Such a simple idea, and one wonders why it was never done successfully before. How many people wished that their doctors, massage therapists, psych therapists, physical therapists, and therapists of any kind had a web portal that allowed you to request an appointment, view results, view your own history, request simple actions like prescription refill, or ask a simple question? How many therapists wish there was a simple scheduling tool linked with patient history so you can track patient visits and behavior, a tool to cut down on less urgent phone calls to make way for emergency calls, log all open actions in an easy format to view and close out? Sounds like a no-brainer to me and one has to wonder why it is that it isn't already existing.

Currently Patient Communicator is being targeted at private practice doctors, relying on EMR partnerships to access their listing of doctors. The price tag per doctor has also been negotiated with EMRs and currently is on the low side of $65 a month. But since it is a new unproven startup, it's understandable that there will be initial growing pains and ideally after it has proven that it can reduce phone calls significantly, practitioners will be more willing to pay.

On the client side, they create an account with their doctor and from that portal they have access to certain actions that the office has set, like requesting appointments, managing appointments, requesting prescription refills, requesting test results, asking questions, viewing billing, etc.

On the physician office side, they have a calendar with scheduling functionality. Any open actions are displayed in the relevant section, allowing the office assistant to deal with actions in order of urgency. But more importantly for the office, it improved patient engagement acting as their CRM solution. It can track the appointment history of clients as well as all their requests and questions/concerns. Additional events can be added to automatically contact clients that have not scheduled appointments within the last 6 months, or follow-ups after a recent visit.

This solution is a no-brainer. Both sides of the conversation is in desperate need for something like this. Of course there will be individuals that still prefer to call into the office, but this is more a supplement for others that would prefer to take action online. Furthermore, this platform can easily replace any scheduling, billing, and client tracking system already in place, as the office assistant can enter in appointments manually and take action even when the client is calling in.

Patient Communicator is still in its infancy as it was only selected to be part of the Blueprint incubator program in January 2012. But as with any SaaS, the solution was developed with the founder's father as a pilot client. They are now aggressively seeking partnerships with various EMRs to expand the number of doctors using their service.

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Brainstorming Tool

Tricider

https://tricider.com/

I am partaking in the Venture Lab project, which is led by Stanford professor Chuck Eesle. The first project is a team brainstorm on the 5 best and worst tech startups. So, being a tech focused project, it was best to use tech solutions to help us accomplish our tasks. That's when I stumbled upon Tricider. It is simply a brainstorm tool that allows users to create a topic "best startup ideas" then opens it up for members to post "ideas" with description and to then add "pro/cons" and finally vote on the ideas.

The UI is minimal and clean.

All-in-all it fits what we needed exactly. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's not the best tool for any in-depth discussion, but it is simple if all you need is a brainstorm tool.

Feel free to check out what our Venture Lab team thinks so far:

Best Ideas: https://tricider.com/en/brainstorming/IwiA

Worst Ideas: https://tricider.com/en/brainstorming/Iwnd

Sadly, Tricider is not a good business model as it relies only on advertising. But hopefully it is so basic and simple a service that even that little revenue is enough to keep it sustainable.

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Niche Social Networks, who's doing this?

IAVA, Social Work Network, Non-Profit ones?

http://iava.org/

http://www.socialworknetwork.com

Another topic I've mentioned numerous times, but have yet to stumble upon anything that really addresses this issue. We are faced with conflicting approaches, general large social networks sites like Facebook and Google Plus, and niche industries and groups like social workers, non-profit workers, even armed forces and government service workers. Undoubtedly, these kinds of neworks are necessary, as are probably more beneficial than most startups being launched today.

Mashable recently covered IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) and how it not only is a social network allowing soldiers to keep in touch with one another upon returning home, but it also acts as an information and services portal for veterans to discover and obtain much needed help.

But when one takes a look at efforts to create these niche social networks, like the Social Work Network, it quickly becomes apparent that the approach is from someone within the industry seeing a need, but lacking the know-how and financial backing to create a quality service. The Social Work Network hopes to become a one-stop shop for all social worker related news, resources, and discussion, but it has stalled at simply being just another basic social network where users create profiles.

The main problems are as I mentioned, that most people within these niches see a need and where it would be useful but don't know how to get things to a usable level. And then you are faced with the quesiton of whether to create a completely separate service for each niche or leverage existing social networks like Facebook/Google+ or create a new umbrella social network?

But let's step back and look at what would be similar across many industries:

1. Users - Most basic is every user would present a profile with relevant information.

2. User <> User network - Simply friends and acquaintances, linking people together.

3. Organizations - Includes the ones people work for and associations and others. You would need each organization to create a profile page.

4. User > Organization - Allows users to link to organizations.

4a. Organization <> Organization - relationships between organizations. Easiest to envision police precincts belonging to cities, etc.

5. Communication - Forums, Messaging, Tweets, etc.

6. News Feeds - What's happening that's related to the industry.

7. Resources - Lists of resources and guides of how-tos.

8. Job search/postings

Looking at that basic list, one has to admit that Facebook satisfies all of that. But the problem is that Facebook does not allow group/topical filtering at this time. For example, say you wanted to enter the realm of social work and have everything you see and all the people you interact with be in that realm. It's conceivable to use http://socialwork.facebook.com and then it would automatically filter all messages, users, posts, organizations, etc. All the latent Facebook functionality would still be useable, but now instead of interacting with your general friends and social network, you are now specifically within social work. Yeah, I've covered this idea before.

But the addition is to then create libraries of additional functionality that elected admins of these groups can add. Examples would be: forums, resources, news. Also, to open up APIs so that the group can get their own developers to interface with external data sources, like governmental agencies.

Yeah, all of this sounds like a behemoth of a project. But I'd think that it is a definite necessity in the future.

[webassess-blog]

Gtrot Reloaded? or recycled?

Gtrot

http://gtrot.com

I do find following the progress of Gtrot to be very interesting. As mentioned in my previous entry about this startup, it came on my radar when I met up with one of the co-founders, Britanny Laughlin at the Web 2.0 Expo two years ago.

At the point in time the service was focused on being a tool to help college student coordinate and plan trips together. They already relied heavily on Facebook for registration and sign in and importing a user's social network. But beyond basic flight search functionality from a Kayak API, the functionality was very limited.

A couple months after that, at the end of 2010, Gtrot underwent a transformation. They discovered that it was much easier and potentially more lucrative to become a discovery tool as opposed to a purchasing end point. They leveraged their Foursquare partnership to supply all the information to allow users to see what was available in a given city. It now sought to be a planning and discovery tool for users visiting a city or to just catalog their own city. But again, the functionality was limited and the content was shallow.

This recent relaunch is less a transformation and more of a make-over. Gtrot still relies completely on Foursquare data, basically pulling their images, and everything else that is displayed about a given location. So, what exactly is the point of Gtrot if they are simply presenting Foursquare data in a prettier UI, do they offer anything else? And from what I can see, the 'newest' innovation is simply taking their 'star/save' list and expanding that to allow users to create multiple lists and save any place to any list, helping them organize locations. Also, their UI draws heavily from the Pinterest look and feel to attract users to peruse the locations.

My initial interest in Gtrot was for it being an example of an Ultra Lean Startup. It had a singular product and they hit the streets, got publicity, and really tried to push it and get a consumer base. While doing this, they were continually upgrading their service and frankly, their entire business model. Now, my interest is less about them being an example of Lean Startup but rather an example of what not to do. It seems to me that they are lost and scrambling to figure out what to do with themselves. Before they were content with simply linking Facebook and Kayak. But once the Foursquare door of data opened to them, they were dazzled, awed, and lost their way. Since their transformation away from booking flights to city discovery and planning, I feel that all they are doing is relisting what already exists on Foursquare. There is very little added value and even less original content.

So, yes, you guys have a team together that might work to get a product up and going. But to keep the same name and to continually relaunch and re-create your entire business plan, is not the right approach. It may be better to simply let Gtrot die and rename your new versions something completely different and push it out as a new product altogether. I imagine it to be hard to get those mentions on Techcrunch, Techmeme and other industry portals if you keep the same name and are approaching them with re-launches.

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Use your Klout!

Wingsplay

http://www.wingsplay.com

I've mentioned Klout before, the service that calculates how influential you are and offers ways for you to get free goods as early adopters and beta testers for companies. Wingsplay similarly seeks to allow users to monetize their social network and drive traffic and buzz towards promoted videos and brands.

Wingsplay allows advertisers to upload their videos, create a campaign, and then let influencers 'seed' the videos. The whole point is to try to get a particular video to go viral by creating incentives for mavens and early adopters to promote the videos and spread them to their networks. As an influencer, you can discover new videos, share the videos anywhere (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) and make money each time the video is viewed. Similar to Klout, Wingsplay calculates an Influence Score to gauge the potential reach and efficacy of a given user.

It's pretty easy to see that Wingsplay is almost a Klout clone except that it specializes in the act of making videos viral, whereas Klout Perks deals with physical goods being sent to influential members. And, the reward for Wingsplay tends to be cold hard cash as opposed to the physical goods. So, Wingsplay seems to have a step ahead of Klout in seeking a monetizing route.

I still think that all of the efforts of large corporations and brands to have a "social presences" is kind of the wild west right now. There are so many potential avenues and these marketing teams flush with money are taking gambles on trying out new avenues like Klout and Wingsplay. Wingsplay is more directly related to marketing as it focuses on the marketing videos and trying to push them to a viral level. Klout has a muddier benefit, on one hand rewarding influential users with goods, while on the other hand ideally generating visibility of brand and product for companies by disseminating items to early adopters and mavens in hopes that they will spawn hype and buzz.

We all know that these brands and companies are salivating at the thought of getting mavens and trend setters to use their products, to write about their experiences, and ultimately generate buzz for the goods. Klout scores and Influence scores are ways to prey on that desire by seeking to assign values to people's social networks and influence.

But all of this suffers from a tyranny of the masses problem. When the internet was newer and there were fewer bloggers or truly active social butterflies, those few held a disproportional amount of power and sway. But as blogs have become more ubiquitous and even more channels of opinions have opened up like Pinterest and microblogs, it gets harder to quantify the influence of any one individuals and the amount of sway each person has starts becoming diluted. How many foodie blogs are out there now? I recall an Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations episode where he met up and talked to 3 pioneers of the foodie blog sphere, but they were truly the early adopters and the first people to dedicate themselves to writing about food in that medium. Now, there are so many people that write about food and whole websites dedicated to it like Yelp. So, it's much harder to pin down any one person that has much more influence than another at this point.

Influence:

Similar to Klout with regards to calculating your influence by gauging your social networks and activity, but with a specific focus on videos and paying influencers to seed videos during the early stages to push them toward a viral level.

A clear focus and thus a clear benefit for advertisers. They can easily run studies on the efficacy of using this service by looking at the amount they invest in a campaign and the traffic the video gets.

Where Klout started drawing curious people on seeing how many people they influence but lacked a clear monetization plan, Wingsplay leverages what Klout already pioneered with a specific focus.

I won't write too much more about this since I'm not much a fan of this idea. I know there are people that tend to influence more than others. But I dislike the idea of assigning values and monetizing that influence. Then again, I am not one who feels the need to tweet continuously as I doubt anyone is interested in what I am doing at any given time. But clearly the new generation is all about being visible and connecting and influential, so I am sure all these services are targeted at them.