Rev2.org

If you have a brand, company, product, or just keywords that you carefully build a business model around, you are no doubt very interested in how that is being perceived by the public.  Large companies and their public relations firms spend a lot of money to find out that kind of feedback.  Internet entrepreneurs read blogs related to their business and occasionally do Web searches to see how they’re doing.

On today’s World Wide Web, though, the social network is king.  Whether you’re marketing or just participating, Web 2.0 is the new way that we all communicate online.  Currently, much of our communications online are taking place through Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc.

StartPR.com gives the entrepreneur the chance to check out how their brand, keywords, product, etc. are doing with just a single search instead of several on just one site instead of many.  It searches all of the popular Web 2.0 hotspots for you, at one location.  It also sends alerts, daily digests, and so forth to keep you informed about how your keywords and brand are doing.

Just coming out of private beta, StartPR is all about getting the current information on what the buzz about your brand is and where it’s happening.

Basic searches are free, you don’t even have to sign up or log into an account.  You can just use the search bar at the StartPR site to see what’s happening right now.  Basic searches like this produce article titles, links, or the entire tweet, depending on what’s found.  Searching for Rev2, for instance, came up with blog entries at other sites, a few tweets with links to our blogs, and even a couple of YouTube videos with us mentioned in the video description or comments.

In fact, most of what was found surprised me.  To fully utilize the StartPR system, though, requires an account.  Free accounts are limited to 2 projects (searches), 2 users, and only 256mb of storage space.  With that, you can find some basic information and keep up to date on a small setup (say a single blog or website).  Prices for professional accounts start at $19/month.

Through the site, you can share found content with others in your group, allowing larger endeavors to find and share information for PR collaboration.  It also gives the smart media marketer to engage with those who are talking about the brand or business and build better relations and buzz.

At the very least, the blogger or small-startup entrepreneur will want to do a basic search at StartPR to see how they’re doing.  It’s free and easy and definitely worth a try.

BrightScope, based in San Diego, California, launched their ratings website BrightScope.com in January of this year, providing independent analysis and 401k ratings to all fifty states.  The BrightScope Rating is the nation’s first online 401k rating system.

Since then, they’ve been perfecting the data stream and building a base of users.  Earlier this month, they received $2 million in Series B funding.  That was lead by an angel investment by Jim Caccavo’s Steelpoint Capital Partners.  Several hedge funds and private equity firms made up the rest of the investment group.

Formerly the CEO of Tickets.com, Caccavo now joins BrightScope’s Board of Directors, bringing Tim Tokarsky (formerly of WysDM) with him to the Board.

In surveys done in 2008, it was found that many employees and workers who qualify to participate in company 401k plans don’t.  In fact, only 30% of those who are eligible participate and of those, only 8% contribute enough to receive full company matching.  Those surveyed listed distrust in the investment and 401k plan as their primary reason for not contributing or for contributing very little.

BrightScope hopes to change those participation numbers by empowering employees and retirement investors with information so they can feel more confident about the contributions they make to their 401k plans.

Analytics at the BrightScope website show everything about plans including their projected solidity in the market, past performance numbers, cost of management versus actual investment, and more.  Basically, BrightScope is full disclosure for 401k investments.

To use BrightScope, all you need to do is go to the site, search for your company’s name (a helpful list of suggested corporate monikers appears as you type).  The company’s 401k plan is then shown along with common metrics on a chart.  You can click on most aspects to get a little more information, but for the most part, everything you really need to know is presented right away.

This is definitely a useful and much-needed service.

If you’ve searched the iTunes App Store, you know that it’s less than user friendly most of the time.  Search filters for price, category, etc. are just not possible and if you’re just looking for a specific app, forget it.  Since even with their latest release, Apple hasn’t addressed this issue, it was only a matter of time before someone else stepped in and did it for them.

That someone looks like uQuery.com.  The front end of this is a search engine.  It searches the app store much more quickly than iTunes’ own search feature and it has a lot of filtering options including price, release date, and app category.  A truly fast and useful search.

The back-end is a complete index of the App Store that’s updated continually.  This index’s data is pulled from the App Store (including product photos/screenshots and the like) and it’s then compiled for faster searching.  The only thing it doesn’t pull is customer reviews, which would be nice, but you can read those when you link from a found app to the store.

Currently, uQuery only works for the U.S. iTunes App Store, but other countries are coming soon, they’ve promised.

The site is well-built and runs quickly.  Filtering is great since it allows you to find new games, filtered by category (genre) and price.  So searching for, say, board games that are $0.99 or less is easy and brings up a list very quickly.

uQuery is free to use and definitely worth checking out of you’re a regular at the iTunes App Store.

FixMyStreet.com is a new service in the UK that lets people report problems with their roadways.  Rather than walking down to the local council office, users can report the problem to the local council through FixMyStreet instead.  Photos, descriptions, and more can be included to clarify.

This is a pretty cool idea and I’d like to see it implemented in more areas worldwide.  It’s definitely something that provides small-town access to larger city folks and is a great enabler.  Got graffiti?  Potholes?  A broken street light?  You can report it easily through FixMyStreet.

In the town where I grew up, reporting these problems was easy.  You just told the local cop, the garbage man, the meter reader, or the gossipy neighbor and it got reported to town hall.  Or you could just go down to the Feed and Grain store and talk to the mayor directly (he owned and ran the store).  That only works in smaller towns.  If you live in London, Westchester, or somewhere populous like that, you probably don’t enjoy that kind of access.

On the FixMyStreet website, the latest reports can be seen–which also allows you to verify or collaborate on an already-submitted report, saving you time and boosting the chances that the council will address it faster.  Stats on how many reports have been made in the past week and month as well as in total are also shown on the page.  At the time of this writing, it was up to an impressive 54,055 reports and counting.

Enabling devices like FixMyStreet are really great to see and I hope the idea catches on.  In Boca Raton, for instance, I have regular discourse with the Chief of Police thanks to Twitter.  This makes for great community interaction and builds on the American history of public servants and elected officials who are directly responsible to the citizens who elected them.

Hopefully, FixMyStreet will spread and we’ll see it soon here in the U.S. too!

If you have stuff to store or maybe an empty shed or garage you’d like to make some money from, SpareFoot.com is for you.  This is an open market for storage where buyers can find storage space reasonably and sellers can rent out their space quickly.

Every kind of storage imaginable is available with listings running the gamut.  Some are garages, some are self-serve storage facilities, some are sublets of storage closets, and others are backyard sheds or extra parking spots.

Users looking for storage space, whether it’s temporary or long-term, can search SpareFoot by size, location, cost, and amenities that might be included.  For instance, if you have a motorcycle to park and you find someone with a spare space in their garage nearby, you can find out if it’s heated and how easily you can gain access to it to get to your bike.  Or maybe you’re going on a lengthy vacation and would like to store your valuables somewhere.  Using SpareFoot, you could find a lower-cost secure storage facility or vault space.

This web portal and market facilitator has had a lot of coverage in recent months.  It’s a truly innovative idea with a lot of potential and use.  It was formerly known as Homstie and changed its name earlier this year.

There are two ways to find storage on the site: search for it, find what you’re looking for, and book it.  Or you can post a request with all of your requirements and criteria and wait for storage renters to come to you with offers.

For those with space to rent, you can list your space for free and include as much information as you can.  Wait for applications and accept or reject them as you see fit (based on their profile, usually).  You can even interact with the potential customer via the site’s message system to get more information or iron out details.  Once the offer is accepted, book an appointment with the client and start collecting rent from them.

Of course, the site comes with a huge caveat emptor: where you store your stuff is up to you, but you take the risks if it’s not secure or cared for.  Those who have space to rent can avoid some of the legal problems that could arise by using a customized lease agreement, which can be purchased from SpareFoot on the site.

Overall, though, this is a great idea and I can see a lot of people using this and saving some cash (or making some) here.  Great idea for sure!

Another day, another Twitter app is launched.  Honestly, there seem to be at least a dozen “hot new” Twitter apps launched every week.  Doesn’t there?  This one is pretty cool and potentially very useful, though, so I decided to check it out.

Tweetiator.com is a plugin for your site that alerts you whenever someone tweets or retweets a link.  This allows the site owner to interact with the people who’re helping to spread their site around for them.  A very good idea with obvious marketing and social networking implications.

The app works through a plugin that the site owner installs (a JavaScript blurb)  and then logs into Tweetiator to access statistics and information.  Email alerts can be sent to let you know when someone shares content or give you a daily run-down of who your biggest fans are.

The app simply resolves the data behind short links like bit.ly and others who compress the links and keep link tracking for the person who shortened the link.  So when someone visits your site and then tweets a bit.ly (or other service with tracking) to their stream, those who follow the bit.ly are “caught” by Tweetiator, who resolves the bit.ly URL to find its original creator (which is public information).

The site owner can then find a list of the people who shorten their site’s links and how often others followed those new URLs to the site or page.  This gives you a ranked list of who your biggest fans and most effective link spreaders are.  That, in turn, tells you who deserves some thanks and who you’ll profit by interacting with.

Tweetiator has a free 30-day trial and after that is $4.95/month.  The tracking is unlimited, so even heavily trafficked sites can profit by using Tweetiator.  Data can be downloaded as a .csv as well, so it can be incorporated into other programs you might be using to analyze data.

This is for sure a great app for those who really get into the social marketing aspects of their sites.  It’s easy to install and the free trial means you can check it out without commitment.