Check out this informative post written by TechCrunch. It provides interesting digital marketing information. To see all new blog posts featuring great marketing info, click here

Published on: 2012-05-14 06:33:25

With $450K behind it in funding, Israeli-based Qmerce is helping business large and small add social games to their communities, particularly on Facebook. The premise behind Qmerce’s value proposition isn’t new. That is, branded social games aimed at driving user engagement via rewards, achievements and consequently, loyalty. With over 40 customers to date, including Crocs and Pizza Hut (the Israeli franchises), and 300,000 games played, it looks like this upstart might be going somewhere. Qmerce is targeting online media, marketing and community managers, to use their platform to create customized/branded games for their audiences. Usually a high-cost endeavor, with Qmerce social games can be created minutes. Pizza Hut, for example, used Qmerce to create a campaign that featured a time-race game tilted ‘Keep It Hot.’ The in-game ‘Car’ was changed to a pizza delivery motorcycle, with the Pizza Hut logo on the delivery box. In-game achievements had real-life counterparts in the form of free pizza and coupons. I was a bit skeptical that wizard-built games can generate compelling engagement, but Qmerce CEO, Moti Cohen, claims that average user play is 50-minutes. I’ve already gone ahead and filed this under: ‘Eat hat.’ Creating social games on Qmerce is free for the time being. The company does however plan on providing a premium service with a higher degree of customization than available directly through the current interface. For those of you that want to meet the Qmerce team, they will be taking part in the Israeli Pavilion at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC.

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Published on: 2012-04-18 18:06:35

I thought you would like this post I found for this blog. Read it here – Obvious, CrunchFund, True Ventures And Others Back Online Community For Local Neighborhoods And Cities, Neighborland

The Obvious Corporation , the ideas incubator and firm started by Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, has announced its latest investment—online community Neighborland. While it’s unclear how much the startup raised, other backers include True Ventures, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, CrunchFund, and Voodoo Ventures. From the startup’s site, it appears New Orleans-based startup Neighborland is an online community for local neighborhood residents to share their ideas and insights for cities, support neighbors’ ideas, and connect with fellow residents who share similar interests. It aims to provide residents, neighborhood organizations, economic development groups, and municipalities with a simple platform to “connect and make good things happen.” And it’s a centralized place where people can share ideas and figure out how to make those ideas a reality. For now, Neighborland is available in Houston, Boulder and New Orleans. Obvious writes of the investment: Neighborland has the potential to connect residents virtually. A connected citizenry is amazingly powerful, as recent events have proven. When neighbors can collectively discuss issues, propose ideas, and unite to have their voices heard, there is virtually nothing they cannot achieve to improve their communities. According to Neighborland, the process of engaging the community begins with a simple fill-in-the-blank form: “I want ____ in my neighborhood.” You fill this out, choose a location, describe your idea in detail with text, pictures, and video, and share it with your friends. Other members in Neighborland can support the idea and the top ideas for the month are featured on the site. Obvious’ other recent investment include Lift, an app development startup; and Branch, a startup aiming to disrupt online conversations and public discourse.

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Obvious, CrunchFund, True Ventures And Others Back Online Community For Local Neighborhoods And Cities, Neighborland

This is a good article called Genbook, The eScheduling Solution For SMBs, Passes 10 Million Appointments Scheduled:

Published on: 2011-11-17 01:28:30

It always annoys me when I want to make an appointment, whether it be for a haircut or a doctor’s visit, and I go online to make said appointment only to find that the company or provider doesn’t offer eBookings. You would think that, if airlines have managed to do it, most businesses might have followed suit by now. Online scheduling software enables customers to book appointments from their browser, reducing friction for them, and streamlining workflow for SMBs. And, hey, even Siri can schedule appointments. Of course, for SMBs, adding a scheduling option to their website can be a pain in the ass. Or, at least the prospect of building a calendar app/module can feel like a pain in the ass. Which is why there are companies like Genbook , which offer local merchants the ability to automate their appointment scheduling through cloud-based software that can integrate with SMBs’ existing software — or allow them to introduce that capability. Genbook’s solution adds a “BookNow” button to merchants’ websites and Facebook Pages, so that customers can scroll through available times, schedule and confirm their appointments with a few clicks. The online appointment and CRM platform is accessible from any computer, iPad or iPhone or Android smartphone, and for merchants, Genbook automatically collects and publishes customer reviews to help promote local merchants within their communities. And they’re genuine reviews, not just canned comments. While Genbook has competitors like Schedulicity , Appointy , and BookFresh , each of which offers a similar service with varying limitations on how much functionality you’ll get for free (Genbook is free for 30 days, and then it’s $20 a month after that), the startup seems to be having some success. Today, Genbook is announcing that it has scheduled over 10 million appointments for SMBs in the U.S., and has scheduled more appointments in 2011 than in any of the four years it’s been around. Just in October, local businesses scheduled 500,000 appointments. The cloud scheduling platform has attracted 5,000 customers, which it says consists of businesses like massage therapists, spas, photographers, chiropractors, etc. — obviously any small company that requires appointments to do business. And for those SMBs, as one can imagine, this can have a positive effect on their bottom lines, as scheduling software that lets customers book in realtime, at any time of day, can prevent no-shows and reduce friction. What’s more, plugging that capability into a social network via Facebook Pages, for example, extends the reach and can presumably provide a boost to customer acquisition. And at less than $250 a year for solo operators and less than $500/year for SMBs, it’s not a bad deal. For more on Genbook, check out the video below:

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Genbook, The eScheduling Solution For SMBs, Passes 10 Million Appointments Scheduled

Published on: 2011-10-03 09:22:59

The Huffington Post Media Group (HPMG), which I should point out is owned by our parent company AOL , is to announce an acquisition today, along with some key stats, hires and new site launches. Kara Swisher obtained and published the press release. HMPG has acquired Localocracy , an “online town common” where registered voters weigh in on local issues and come together to solve problems in their communities, using their real names. According to the release, The Huffington Post has recruited its leadership team (founders Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules, and tech lead Jay Boice). According to Swisher, HPMG paid less than $1 million for Localocracy. The Huffington Post is also launching four sites this week (Huff/Post50, HuffPost Gay Voices, HuffPost Weddings and HuffPost High School), the latest of 21 new verticals since the merger with AOL , which occurred last March. In addition, HMPG says it has hired former NYT blogger Lisa Belkin as Senior Columnist; she’ll be covering parenting, work/life balance and family. Finally, The Huffington Post says it has recorded its largest number of unique monthly visitors ever (37 million), and for the first time topped 1 billion page views. The network also posted a record 5.1 million comments in August 2011. Crunchbase LOCALOCRACY AOL : Website: Learn more Company: Localocracy Website: localocracy.org Launch Date: October 3, 2011 Funding: $173k Localocracy provides an online town common where registered voters, using real names, can weigh in on local issues. Localocracy was awarded two rounds of seed funding from the UMass, Amherst Innovation Challenge in 2009 and 2010. Learn more Company: AOL Website: aol.com IPO: NYSE:AOL AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming. On March 13, 2008, AOL Internet division announced their plans to buy social network Bebo for $850 million in cash. History of Aol: AOL was… Learn more

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Huffington Post Hits 37 Million Monthly Visitors, 1 Billion Pageviews; Acquires Localocracy

Published on: 2011-09-10 05:20:14

I think you should check out this article I found for this blog. Read it here – Cup of Joe: How To Build An Army Of Supporters

Let me first start off by apologizing for what looks like a ridiculous indie art project. I mean seriously what the heck does a girl wandering in the woods have to do with this quote? Anyways do your best to ignore the picture and focus on the wise words of Mr. Mark Twain. Twain’s words are spot on. Of course avoiding people that belittle your ambitions seems to be common sense. However, understanding that your success is tied to those that support you is oftentimes completely ignored. Because the truth is there are no self made men or women. Everyone finds success and even failure with the help of their communities. Great people do great things with the support of others. You are only as good as the people supporting you. Therefore it’s only logical to help empower your community as much as possible. This philosophy is not some feel-good personal dogma but rather the cornerstone of running a good business. If you work every day to empower your clients, customers, and users you are automatically building the base of support that is required for your business to succeed. Your investment in your customer’s empowerment has a direct effect on yours. This is why it is vital to not only focus on cutting-edge marketing, but also superior customer service, and outstanding product development. Because at the end of the day if your customers and users aren’t empowered by your products and services, then they can’t be much help to your cause even if they want to be. The key to building a strong army of supporters is empowering individuals every day. Through this empowerment you empower yourself and your company. [ photo credit ]

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Cup of Joe: How To Build An Army Of Supporters

Published on: 2011-06-03 18:36:00

I found this article I found for this blog. Read it here – Scaling, Scaling, Scaled: textPlus Turns Two, Hits 10 Billion Messages Sent Milestone

GOGII’s well-funded , free text messaging app, textPlus , announced today that it has crossed the 10 billion text messages sent mark since it launched in the app store in June of 2009. They’re pumping out texts like McDonald’s pumps out burger patties. Of course, when it comes to group and micro-messaging apps, textPlus has some competition. Think SXSW and you probably think group messaging. Ask Around, Ditto, Yobongo, Beluga, GroupMe, FastSociety, etc. have all been making noise, getting acquired by Facebook , or raking in funding. The list goes on. But today textPlus makes it clear who the leader of the pack is and will be for at least the near future. On top of 10 billion total messages sent, in May alone, textPlus sent 1.3 billion texts. The app has been downloaded more than 17.5 million times and, while the startup hasn’t finalized the statistics yet, GOGII Founder & CEO Scott Lahman said that the startup has now passed the 8 million monthly active users mark. In March, ahead of SXSW, textPlus launched a group messaging charity campaign that donated $1 for each new group created to charities like Livestrong and EnoughisEnough. This followed a long scaling process that started two years ago with free texting and group texting, then added communities, or supergroups as Lahman calls them. textPlus then moved from doing traffic over shortcode to giving out free phone numbers, before adding the ability for avid texters to not only get their own number but create a social profile and search all other users by name or keyword. Today, textPlus has built its own social network of texters and instant messagers, and not surprisingly, its core demographic is teenagers, who are, on average, text messaging machines. And since adding search functionality in December, textPlus has seen 27 million searches, mostly among younger users, who have embraced texting as the new voice — and instant messager. When asked what the next step is for textPlus that will allow it continue to stay ahead of the rapidly scaling field, Lahman referenced Comscore’s latest mobile data , which showed that 70 percent of mobile usage centers around texting, while gaming has grown to 25 percent. When GOGII left the mobile gaming space in 2007, that number was closer to 10 percent. Lahman said that the communities of texters and the textPlus platform itself are already social in nature and are well positioned for gaming integration. For teens, mobile chat is already an engaging and social game for mobile, and really there’s little separation for young people between texting and gaming, so Lahman said that it’s a matter of finding the best way to build gameplay out of social chat. With competition on its heels, Lahman is wary of sharing too much of GOGII’s future roadmap, but there’s no doubt textPlus will be playing with game-ified texting over the next year. There was also mention of a “Twitter and textPlus lovechild”, which could add a bit of microblogging to the textPlus platform. Nothing for sure yet, but it will be interesting to see what textPlus has up its sleeve. textPlus already enables users free and unlimited one-to-one, group and community texting, so that users can group text with friends and talk to people all over the world about what interests them via chat communities. And the announcement of 10 billion messages sent includes the addition of textPlus Free Text, Group Text, and GOLD to Amazon’s app store for Android. textPlus is also available on Apple’s app store and the Android Marketplace. CrunchBase Information GOGII Information provided by CrunchBase

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Scaling, Scaling, Scaled: textPlus Turns Two, Hits 10 Billion Messages Sent Milestone

Published on: 2011-05-25 19:51:41

I thought you would like this article I found for this blog. Read it here – 4Chan Has 18M Uniques A Month, Canvas Participation Is Optional

4Chan and Canvas founder Christopher Poole (Moot) took the stage to talk to Erick Schoenfeld about creating vibrant online communities. Poole revealed that that the eight-year-old 4Chan is averaging 8 million users according to Quantcast and 18 million monthly users according to Google. Note: Poole says that the Google numbers used to be 14 million and shot up to 18 because of a recent Google Analytics tag change. Still impressive. Poole also explained why he built Canvas into a separate venture-backed company as opposed to porting over the existing 4Chan users onto the new platform and just having them deal with it. “We want to re-imagine what the modern message board would look like … It’s less about the product and more about the community.” Poole does however think that the communities will eventually overlap, “I’m sure that millions of the 4channers will want to use Canvas once we open it to the public. But we don’t want to force them to do so.” Canvas should be out of private beta in the next couple of months, Poole says. CrunchBase Information Christopher Poole Information provided by CrunchBase

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4Chan Has 18M Uniques A Month, Canvas Participation Is Optional

Published on: 2011-03-30 12:43:23

I thought you would like this post I found for this blog. Read it here – Salesforce.com to Buy Radian6, a Bet on Social CRM

CRM application provider makes a big bet on helping businesses connect with customers via Twitter, Facebook, and other communities.

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Salesforce.com to Buy Radian6, a Bet on Social CRM

Published on: 2011-03-06 06:18:18

Nat Wei ( @natwei ), is a social entrepreneur and adviser to the UK Government on their “Big Society” project. As one of the youngest people ever to have been made a Life Peer of the House of Lords, Lord Wei is the founding and former lead partner of the Shaftesbury Partnership, and a member of the founding team of Teach First. As “Baron Wei of Shoreditch” he is intensely interested in the emergence of the cluster of startup technology companies in the Shoreditch/Hoxton area of London which has come to be known as Silicon Roundabout and which has informed the UK government’s new “ East London Tech City ” initiative. This week will be the first in a series of guest posts on the use of technology in re-building civic society. The Big Society is an approach being championed inside and outside of the government in the UK and increasingly in other countries to enable citizens to take more control over their lives, based on the belief that people often know how to solve the problems they care about and improve their communities better than anyone else. Whilst built on centuries old principles, it is also optimistic about the power of technology, and has been inspired by the more open, inclusive, and effective ways of working expressed through the internet, social media, and crowd sourcing.

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Technology Is Crucial To The Big Society, Says Lord Of Silicon Roundabout

Check out this informative article written by TechCrunch. It provides good digital marketing information. To see all new blog posts featuring great marketing info, click here

Published on: 2011-02-01 13:54:25

Recyclebank — a loyalty rewards program that encourages people to lower the environmental impact of their lifestyles, for example, by recycling more and tossing less — introduced a redesigned website and mobile apps, and began offering new services to customers and partners on Monday. Chief executive of Recyclebank, Jonathan Hsu , said some of the new features he’s excited about, include: 1. “Learn and earn” quizzes that give RecycleBank users a small number of redeemable points for correctly answering questions about ecology, energy and the like. 2. Local search capabilities, encouraging users to do more “green” things around their communities, or to buy from more green service providers and suppliers near their homes, for points. 3. Rewards from more local, small-to-medium sized businesses, so members can cash in points for a discount at a sustainable grocer or dry cleaner within their zip code, not just redeem points for freebies and discounts from large chains. 4. Facebook, Twitter and further mobile integrations that let RecycleBank users interact with or access the site’s content and features via their iPhones and iPads now, and in coming quarters their Android devices. Hsu recently completed his first 100 days as CEO at Recyclebank. The New York City startup is venture-backed by Kleiner Perkins, RRE Ventures and Sigma Partners, and was originally founded by Ron Gonen. Hsu said that the site and its new features hint at some of the changes to come for Recyclebank, overall: “Today, Recyclebank is an innovative program to increase recycling in over 300 cities in the U.S. and U.K. The site redesign is all about the member experience. [It will] let members see their impact from recycling, and a number of other sustainable and community enhancing behaviors, beyond that, now. It helps people understand the context of their actions and where they fit in the world.” With the ramped up search and content, the company stands to double its advertising and sponsorship revenue within two years. Hsu confirmed about 10 percent of RecycleBank’s revenue comes from ads and sponsored content now, and that even at maturity, it won’t likely comprise more than 25 percent. Recyclebank’s move to offer points to users who implement energy efficiency measures at home — whether that’s by installing solar panels, turning off the lights more frequently, or insulating their homes better —