November 20, 2012
Urtak

^ What do they do?

Give publishers a tool to encourage conversation around their content through yes/no questions.

Why are they special?

  1. Questions can be moderated by the community or publishers to allow mass or individual inquiry approval
  2. Encourage readers to hang out longer through enhanced user participation (on average 90 seconds longer)
  3. Track statistics of every question, answer, and new user

Are they funded?

Vaizra Seed Fund, Quotidian Ventures, Esther Dyson, Tech Stars seed ($512K)

Who are their comps?

Polldaddy, Disqus

How do I find them?

Website / Crunchbase / Twitter / Facebook  

What else can you tell me?

Via a WordPress plugin.

 

7:54pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZucFnvXiEG78
Filed under: urtak enterprise content 
November 4, 2012
Contently

^ What do they do?

Help publishers build and manage content programs, with the assistance of freelancers.

Why are they special?

  1. Editorial calendar and assignment management dashboard streamlines approvals, publishing, deadlines, editing, and more while integrating with existing CMS
  2. Allow bloggers and journalists to aggregate a portfolio, illustrate their social kudos, pitch for work, and track their stories’ influence
  3. Platform+ serves larger brands and agencies to allow version control, payment processing, and flexible approval processes

Are they funded?

Lightbank, ff Venture Capital, Consigliere Brand Capital seed ($2MM)

Who are their comps?

Guru, Scripted

How do I find them?

Website / Crunchbase / Twitter / Facebook

What else can you tell me?

Every writer is screen, vetted, and cataloged by location/area of expertise.

 

9:03am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZucFnvWakKu5
Filed under: contently content marketing tech 
September 29, 2012
Delve

^ What do they do?

A personalized news feed for your team or organization.

Why are they special?

  1. Follow headlines that are relevant to your field or interests, filtering by specific topic or source
  2. Discuss stories with your team members, which are archived and distributed via email
  3. Offer a bookmarklet to bring in additional content to spur a conversation or debate

Are they funded?

Bootstrapped

Who are their comps?

Followords, paper.li, Kohort

How do I find them?

Website / Twitter / Facebook

What else can you tell me?

Pivot from mycirQle.

3:05pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZucFnvUJQvho
Filed under: delve content enterprise 
July 16, 2012
Gojee

^ What do they do?

Make recipe recommendations curated by food/drink bloggers in a visually engaging way. 

Why are they special?

  1. Allow you to search recipes around ingredients, either that you want to eat or have on hand, while excluding items you dislike or are allergic to
  2. Partnered with D’Agostino’s loyalty program to automatically load recent purchases 
  3. Credit back to the recipe source, while being able to collect favorites on Gojee

Are they funded?

InterWest Partners Series A ($4MM total)

Who are their comps?

Food on the Table, Food52, Tasty Planner, Yummly

How do I find them?

Website / Crunchbase / Twitter / Facebook

What else can you tell me?

More supermarket partnerships are in the works. The team handpicks the recipe sources - my friend Veronica Chan is Gojee’s Director of Content.
 

6:57pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZucFnvPU_CO6
Filed under: gojee content 
July 11, 2012
Branch

^ What do they do?

Enable subject-matter experts to discuss just amongst themselves online.

Why are they special?

  1. Existing users and promoters include heavy hitters from TechCrunch, NYT, USV
  2. Multimedia chats can be preserved with a url for reference and sharing
  3. Allow additional conversants to be invited to further extend perspectives

Are they funded?

Obvious Corp, Lerer Ventures, betaworks, SV Angel, David Tisch, Rick Webb, Lucas Nelson, and Ryan Freitas seed ($2MM)

Who are their comps?

GroupMe, !Blether, HipChat

How do I find them?

Website / Crunchbase / Twitter 

What else can you tell me?

Recently uprooted from SF. Scheduled to go live and public in about 5 weeks, and a mobile app in the works. Got to get to know CEO Josh Miller and CTO Hursh Agrawal via connections through Lean Startup Machine. 

10:16pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZucFnvPAbb4q
Filed under: branch content social 
July 3, 2012
News.me

^ What do they do?

Scrub through your Twitter and Facebook streams to parse out only the most significant (aka socially shared) news in an easy-to-digest format. Also highlight overall important headlines.

Why are they special?

  1. Utilize bit.ly analytics to better identify trending stories, and thus discover not only what your friends/followees are pumping out, but also clicking on
  2. Enable readers to save articles for later under a reading list
  3. Initiate and participate in conversation around news topics, including those that have incited a reaction

Are they funded?

betaworks seed (undisclosed)

Who are their comps?

Flipboard, Taptu, Zite, News360

How do I find them?

Website / Crunchbase / Twitter / Facebook

What else can you tell me?

Initially bred out of the New York Times, news.me has pitched at the NYTM on a couple of occasions. Before their launch of iPad and iPhone apps, were exclusively distributed via email.

6:25pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZucFnvOeSDAi
Filed under: news.me content social 
July 2, 2012
Jux

^ What do they do?

Blogging/publishing for the visually stimulated and inspired and foremost oriented around self-expression. Build a portfolio, follow others’, and share.

Why are they special?

  1. Gorgeous, nearly fool-proof simple UX with the additions of more advanced options like using a personal domain
  2. Integrate neatly with Instragram, Flickr, Facebook, and uniquely, Google StreetView
  3. Free to use, and boastful that it portrays the user “edge-to-edge” without ads, sidebars, or even its own logo (which is optional to include)

Are they funded?

Bootstrapped

Who are their comps?

Tumblr, Squarespace, Wordpress, Smugmug, 500px

How do I find them?

Website / Crunchbase / Twitter / Facebook

What else can you tell me?

Built on HTML5 to be beautiful across the web, your iPad, or iPhone. First came across Jux through a friend/former dev, and thought it too pretty a face to forget. 

 

5:54pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZucFnvOZzcAd
Filed under: jux web content