Companies and nonprofits have invested years, and many thousands of dollars, proliferating their email lists, only to watch email open rates decline by almost 50 percent over the past decade, says Roz Lemieux, CEO of Attentive.ly. She’s seen people moving to social media for their day-to-day communications, leaving organizations struggling to figure out how to engage…
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YourCauseOrMine combines your passion with your passion. It’s a dating site that matches people based on the causes they support, like the environment or women’s rights. “Get involved and maybe…get involved,” it proclaims. The site has all the trimmings of a normal dating site, with boxes to check for body type, religion, and whether you…
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During this season of mass-travel, many of us are thankful for the flight crews that get us to our destinations safely and comfortably. JetJoose Co-CEO and Co-Founder Ronan Keane decided that these crews deserved their own social network to help them make the mass-travel that is part of their everyday lives more enjoyable. JetJoose is…
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With the average LinkedIn user over 40 years old, it can be a staid and formal place for a student. Equals6, recently voted our hottest showcasing startup in Boston, wants to give students a professional place to network that’s a little more youthful. “Equals6 fits in the space between Facebook, where students generally want to…
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Starting a startup community revolution ain’t easy. It would take something along the lines of -say- a five book series and a dedicated online venue to host this community. As it happens, Brad Feld is the man for the job, and is doing just that. The TechStars co-founder, managing director at Foundry Group, prominent investor,…
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Most accelerators give startups intensive help for a few months, then send them off into the world. ePowerhouse, a startup based in Boston, wants to give startups a long-term helping hand. ePowerhouse is a social network. You can create a startup profile, then post what you’re looking for: cofounders and team members, investors, or mentors….
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Skinny Scoop, the site where women can recommend things to other women, launched publicly today. SkinnyScoop has built a community of hundreds of thousands of women who turn to each other for suggestions on apps and books, child care, beauty products, and more. In the process, woman can become influencers within their field and build…
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Editor’s Note: This article is a revised version of an article that appears in the May 2012 issue of The Social Media Monthly. If you like it, you might want to download The Social Media Monthly iPad app or iPhone app and subscribe, or order a print subscription. Nary an arrow from Cupid’s quiver has stung as much as the volleys launched…
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Announced today, Traackr, an enterprise-grade people discovery engine, has raised a $1.5 million round of funding. Investors include Traackr Chairman Robbie Vann-Adibé as well as an undisclosed group of employees from Google. Traackr offers a pair of services, one for enterprise and another for small businesses (A-List and Traackr One, respectively) which helps brands to…
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LikeBright is an online dating site that connects you with friends of friends, hopefully turning awkward online dating into a safe, natural experience. You can even vouch for your friends to help them get noticed. The Seattle startup launched out of TechStars Seattle at the end of last year. Below, founder and CEO Nick Soman…
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Today, social media consultancy Digital Royalty introduces the online Digital Royalty University: classes in social media, company culture, and personal growth. Digital Royalty University is based on the team’s years of social media work for personalities like Shaquille O’Neal and The Rock, as well as clients like DoubleTree and the Chicago White Sox. Kicked off…
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Scott and Stacey Ferreira’s inspiration comes from high school, when the brother-and-sister duo noticed that content was disorganized online and took too many steps to actually view (like usernames and passwords). They set out to build a platform that allows easy access to your favorite things on the web. With this idea, they went from…
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An orphan raised by a blacksmith in the Mountain West, Nate Quigley’s grandfather grew up to become a forest ranger. At his funeral, they played a recording of him singing “Home on the Range,” which he used to sing at family reunions. “It was one of those really powerful moments,” says Quigley. “Home on the…
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Consumer-to-consumer marketing, word of mouth, earned media – whatever you call it, it is a powerful influencer related to purchasing. A Neilsen study earlier this year found that “ninety-two percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising…
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In July, two of the YouTube cofounders unveiled Zeen, a tool to create online magazines full of your favorite web links. Medium, launched in August by the Twitter cofounders’ Obvious Corporation, is also trying to rethink publishing. Joining them in their mission is PersonSpot, a new angel-funded startup out of Washington, DC. Cofounder Ioannis Velissarakos, a…
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Self-published authors have rallied around the term “indie publishing,” some calling the traditional publishing industry elitist, outdated, and irrelevant. Meanwhile, the “elites” have packed a few punches; novelist Sue Grafton said recently, “I compare self-publishing to a student managing to conquer Five Easy Pieces on the piano and then wondering if s/he’s ready to be…
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Tech Cocktail is headed back to DC. Why? Because we're a fan of good... Read More
Locating quality startups in San Francisco is like spotting bees in a hive.... Read More
Today, we’re excited to announce that Tech Cocktail has taken a $2.5M... Read More
Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said... Read More
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