Last week Tim, the CEO of Wawadoo made time to have a drink with me. I had met his co-founder, Chris at open coffee club last week and was anxious to find out more about the young Alphalab company.
Wawadoo is the recommendation engine for events. As they explain it, “just view our list of events, vote ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ if something interests you, and receive increasingly accurate recommendations on things to do every time you choose.” On the concept level they may have something: how many times have you wondered what to do or found out about something you wanted to go to after it was over?
I was excited to hear that Tim’s thought this through much further than the concept level, it’s a potentially interesting business model. Like many interest-based sites, there is a lot of potential for related business to leverage targeted advertising. For example, if I’m a bar I could advertise to people who frequently attend events at the neighboring concert hall or happy hours that are similar to mine.
The difficulty in a business like this is getting to critical mass. The users have to be present in order for the businesses to find value. Tim and Chris, the founders of Wawadoo, think they can do it. “We’ve seen a great response from local organizations. I think they see something like this as the future of finding an event” says Chris, the COO of the company (and a talented developer). “We haven’t opened the site yet and we already have interest of event promoters and organizations who want to co-promote with us,” Tim added, “This will be a great way to get the word out to users. It also means that the businesses must see something there.”
Soon you’ll get to decide. Go to www.wawadoo.com, enter your email address, and you’ll be one of the first members of the public to try it.
myGov365 offers a new service to engage the public in the political process. Similar to the Sunlight Foundation’s OpenCongress.org, myGov365 allows users to support different politicians, bills, causes, etc. OpenCongress only gets as local as congressional districts, myGov365 takes the concept further by connecting at the “hyper-local” level such as city councils. This isn’t just a copy-cat idea, the best part of myGov365 is that it allows and encourages local politicians to interact within the network.
I recently was invited to join go the private beta and have had an opportunity to use the product. This is a perfect time for a product like myGov365 to launch – political participation was at an all-time high during the last presidential election and now with hot button issues such as the stimulus, health care reform and (for Pittsburgh) library closures and the tuition tax people are more interested than ever to know about the issues.
Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto spoke with me about his involvement and goals with working with myGov365. He became involved early on in the project and worked diligently for almost a year to clear the obstacles for myGov365. The trick was to allow for one-way communication and not put a burden on the City Clerks office. This is great news. Because of Peduto’s experience in working with open government initiatives and foresight this access is available free of charge to any group or individual interested.
Peduto goes on about myGov365′s goal to move beyond just government and into the community. He mentions that the beta will soon grow to include some “technically and social media savvy” non-profit organizations from the East End.
The goal of myGov365 is to give politicians and community groups an easy to use platform to engage with their constituents. I believe this is a great goal, but a lofty one. Politicians have numerous opportunities to interact and with their constituents via Twitter and Facebook – what compelling reason do politicians and constituents have to go to another network? Peduto belives that this is going to be the “Facebook or Twitter for Governments.” He may be right, but to get people to move between Facebook and myGov365 may pose a challenge.
Given that myGov365 is still in it’s infancy I think they have a chance to answer that question. Right now, they are working to refine their product. Despite some hiccups with the beta invites, myGov365 is a solid beta. Unfortunately the webpages look like a beta, right now it isn’t very polished (especially given the focus on design and usability in so many of today’s startups) and it takes some guessing to determine how to get information (like to find out what H.R. 3975 is, I have to click on the title and dig through the information there.)
Like most networks, you can comment on things (bills, etc), join or create groups and contact other members of the network. For the politically active this is a great tool to find like-minded individuals and discuss the topics. For the curious it’s great to see what representatives are promoting and discussing.
Overall I think it’s a solid product headed in the right direction for local politics and non-profits. But, I’m still going to use OpenCongress as my go-to reference for national issues because of the larger community and easier to navigate UI.
With a name like The Resumator there is no need for a catchy title. An AlphaLab graduate, The Resumator is a company and product. The Resumator aims to make the hiring process simple, efficient and cheap. Currently aimed squarely at small and medium sized companies, The Resumator has gained traction with startups in Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley.
The premise is simple, just like the product. Resumator works to gather, categorize and gather statistics on any number of different areas for recruiters and “HR” folk. Unlike other products in the market, The Resumator does not offer a turn-key solution, rather, they create a product that is usable for someone expecting a decent number of applicants. It’s great for a growing and popular start up.
Locally it is used by MobileFusion (also an AlphaLab grad) as well as the better known Silicon Valley start up, Dropbox (the terrific online back-up and storage app). After being launched in January 2009, The Resumator was profiled by all of the big technology blogs including Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and CNet.
The Resumator delivers the power of a much larger HR management system for a comparatively infinitesimal price – ReadWriteWeb
This Pittsburgh start-up is another that isn’t about robotics or biotech. It’s solid business-to-business app that nicely meets it’s customers needs. The online “cloud” or SaaS (Software as a Service) apps are nothing new – small business get great advantages from using them. Popularized by 37Signals’ collaboration tool Basecamp, small business now have a suite of products from many innovative companies to meet their needs. Less Accounting, MailChimp, FreshBooks and others round out a number of apps that aim to support the small businesses by offering the traditional business needs in the cloud. The Resumator holds it’s own and so long as they keep innovating and producing a great product they will be another Pittsburgh success story.
Photo by Steve Bridger
Last week, I told you how you can create a blog-like effect with your Press Releases by
adding an RSS feed. This week I am going to show you how a blog can help you fill the gaps between big announcements for additional press.
Before you start scrambling around to set up your new blog ask yourself these three questions:
- Do you have something new to say weekly or daily? One of the worst things you can do is setup a blog and then fail to update it. Having a poorly maintained blog can make your company look dead.
- Are your customers looking for an online connection? If you have no one to talk to then you shouldn’t start a blog. If you build it, they will not always come. If your company is retail or service based, it’s almost a no-brainer to have a blog.
- Do you feel comfortable giving up control? Having a blog on your site will give people a forum to talk about your company via blog comments. Yes, you can turn the comment feature off on most blogging platforms but if you do, you are missing a chance to learn from your customers.
If you answered yes to at least two of these questions, it might be a good idea to start researching ways you can set up a blog. There are a lot of people online that can help you with this, like ProBlogger. If you would like an idea on what is involved, check out this eHow article, How to Setup a Business Blog.
A blog can be a great tool to communicate to your customers. But, if you don’t know what to say you could end up with a blog that lacks updates. Here is a short list of topic ideas:
- Product Research: Write a post about a new direction your taking with a product, and see what your customers have to say about it. You don’t have to give away your secrets, but try to find a clever way to let them think they are in on the “secret”. It builds loyalty.
- Office Life: The great thing about a blog is that it can add the “personal touch” to your company. Write about the new dog someone got in the office or the April Fool’s joke you played on each other. These kinds of post can do wonders for building a personality around your products and brand, but it’s not for everyone. A trendy company like Mod Cloth can get away with posts like this, but a life science company might want to stay away.
- Little Things: Let’s say all you did was change the color of your product. It’s not something you would rush out and write a press release about, but it’s definitely something you should blog about.
- Industry News: If there is a new development that has something to do with your industry or products, write about it. Chances are your customers will find value in the information.
- Jobs: If you or one of your vendors has a job opening, write a post about it. I have seen a few companies do this, but I do not know the outcome.
On a blog you can post anything you feel comfortable posting. Before you get started, remember to set some boundaries. If you think your brand would not get any benefit out of talking about office life, then don’t post about it. Write posts that compliment the brand your company already markets.
Next week I will share with you ways you can have your customers do marketing for you with Social Media. This can also be helpful for companies that do not have a need for a blog, but have customers looking for an online connection.
