6 posts tagged “interview”

Wize is a product review site that aggregates sources from across the web to bring you a comprehensive perspective on consumer items.  The aim is to help consumers make better decisions, and reviews are a very important way to do this, especially when shopping online.  Wize offers products' satisfaction scores and rankings, as well as specs, such as price, to aid in the review process.  This cuts down the time necessary for shoppers as they don't need to spend as much time doing their own research.  Wize also offers a bookmarking tool for users to keep track and take note of what they've found on Wize. This helpful tool will soon be coupled with more community features within the Wize service.

Below is an interview with Wize CEO Tom Patterson.

What is Wize and how does it work?

Wize is a Web site that makes deciding what product(s) to buy extremely easy.  Wize makes this possible by leveraging the growing amount of online expert and user opinions and presenting them to consumers in a radically simple way.  Think of us as a “Consumer Reports of the Future” or a “Rotten Tomatoes” for all products.       

How does it work?  Wize collects all the user and expert reviews and ratings we can find on the web and algorithmically computes a product satisfaction score (or Wize Rank) of 1-100. Wize Rank is the quickest, easiest way to determine which products are best, and to filter out the ones that aren’t worth considering. Since they’re based on our technology and market research science, Wize Ranks are completely impartial and can’t be manipulated.

The next way we help is by collecting other information related to product research -- specifications, stores, prices, and “buzz” (akin to popularity) and displaying them as simply and clearly as possible.

Essentially, we do all of the work needed to help people make smart purchases in less time by providing quick access to the best content on the Web.

Where do most of your reviews come from?

Our reviews come from a variety of sources all over the Web, from Amazon to Cnet to many smaller, useful sites. In addition to those popular all-encompassing product review sources, we make sure Wize Ranks for each product category incorporate reviews from very product-specific sources. For example, the Wize Ranks for digital cameras represent reviews from such well-established digital camera sources as Popular Photography & Imaging magazine, Digital Camera magazine and Shutterbug magazine – to name just a few. Our list of sites grows everyday, and we make sure to look at the quality of the content of each site before incorporating it into our Wize Rank or displaying it to our consumers.   

How do you target consumers that are willing to add their reviews?

Because remaining impartial is so critical to our value proposition, the content on Wize.com has been collected from other review sites around the web. We will be launching a capability to add reviews directly into Wize in a way that adds value for all of our customers and ensures the integrity of our Wize Rank.   

How do you access retailer and expert reviews?

Our goal is to bring together the Web’s best, most reliable content to help people decide what to buy. Wize Technology focuses on aggregating content from the best retail and expert sites. We then determine which sites have a great ability to predict how good a product will be. We continually add new sources as we expand products and categories.  A great way to think about the consumer reviews on the Web now is that it’s a great proxy for word of mouth information that exists offline.  Wize will be growing to compile information in all the places where word of mouth exists -- not just retail and expert sites.  This process of finding and presenting the most relevant information will continue to dramatically improve the product research process for people.      

What type of website publisher are you wanting to use your badge for people to post a review on an individual product?

Our syndication strategy has many levels. We are currently working with a variety of partners, including bloggers, portals and retailers who have interest in leveraging objective, third party data to help customers figure out what to buy, to provide value added content to their site experience, to improve conversion (product click-through) and to prevent leakage to other sites when their customers need to do more product research.
The benefit that bloggers, portal, retailers and manufacturers get is they get a third party opinion of a product, which increases Web site trust and product conversion.

The use of Wize Rank this way is similar to how people use Wine Spectator scores in wine stores to help people buy the best wines for the price.

 
What are you hoping to accomplish with the My Research bookmarking feature?

With the My Research bookmarking feature, we wanted to provide users with a convenient way to keep track of products they’ve researched on Wize, in addition to any notes they added to them. You can save items to My Research by clicking the Save to My Research button beside any product. You can also add, delete or change your notes at any time.

Currently, My Research is cookie-based, meaning that users don’t have to remember a username and password and login every time they want to take advantage of it. In our research, customers have told us that they really like this feature. We’re continuing to gather customer feedback in order to make it better.

What are your upcoming plans?

Right now, we’re focusing on two things: improving our destination Wize.com Web site (product experience) and providing our Wize Rank information across the Web.  

We continue to improve our proprietary Wize Rank, making it better so that it is undisputedly the best, most helpful and most accurate product ranking system on the Web. We’re constantly adding products and sources, in addition to working with our technologists and statistician PhDs to ensure that the Wize Rank is a portable and robust product satisfaction score.  

Wize Rank will be leveraged into our continually improving Web site and will also be leveraged in our partnerships.

We are working with a number of companies to provide them with our Wize Rank and Wize data so they can improve their current Web site experiences. They are leveraging the technology and IP we’ve created so they don’t have to spend money, time and resources trying to build it themselves. It’s not trivial. We are very excited about our partnerships that see the value in the data we provide. 

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With the extreme popularity of Twitter, and the talk of how it should be acquired soon, it only makes sense that similar services emerge and gain traction as well.  Jaiku is Twitter's most relevant rival, and I can clearly see why.  I first mentioned Jaiku here, as an offering to those looking for a Twitter alternative. My favorite aspect of Jaiku is the ease with which any feed can be added to your account, for your own purposes as well as your friends'.   And with Jaiku's growing buzz in the blogosphere, I'm happy to have had a chance to catch up with Jaiku's co-founder Jyri Engestrom .

How did Jaiku come about?

In 2006 the two founders - Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen -realized we both wanted a better way to share what we were doing in real life with our friends online. Although we spent a lot of time on blogs and Web services built by our friends, like Flickr, we felt they were too cumbersome to update and difficult to read on our mobile phones. We decided to make a service that regular people would use every day, that was quicker to update on the go and would enable all of us to see what our family members, friends, and colleagues were doing simply by glancing at our handset.

Last summer we met Mika Raento and Teemu Kurppa, two talented mobile developers who shared our passion to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their presence on phones. Mika had already written pretty ingenious code for Symbian phones, that solved some the hardest technical problems related to always-on client-server communication (such as power consumption) as part of his PhD studies. Teemu was one of the key developers in Nokia's Core Applications team, where he had written parts of the Calendar and other core Nokia applications. With Mika and Teemu on board, we decided to build a mobile client and a Jabber back-end for Jaiku.

Later in 2006, we raised seed funding and hired two great Web developers: Andy Smith from Flock, and Juha Törönen, who joined us from the leading Helsinki Web design company. With Andy and Juha we started developing the Web components, support for text messaging, and the ability to embed RSS feeds from other services to your stream of Jaikus. We put an early beta version out quietly last year, and formally launched Jaiku at the O'Reilly ETel conference in March this year.

Where do you see online behavioral trends going, considering your service really allows for the constant updating of user behavior?

We believe that online social behavior as a whole is moving towards groups who are in a state of constant connectedness. This means shorter, more frequent, more personal updates that assume the recipients already know a lot about the sender and context of the message. The amount of communication increases but it contains less noise because we know more about the context of our peers. For example, in trials of the early research prototype of Jaiku Mobile, the amount of missed calls between the users dropped by about 15 percentage points, because on Jaiku the caller can see when the recipient is busy already before they try to reach them.

Just as a recap, the posts on Jaiku are simply called Jaikus. They are shorter than blog posts. Because their content is usually about what you're doing, how you're feeling, or where you're going right now, their value typically also degrades more quickly over time. On many Web services the interval between new updates from a user is a day or more, but on Jaiku the updates are more frequent. When you browse the profiles of Jaiku members, you'll notice that a Jaiku that was posted an hour ago can already be outdated by several newer ones. The content of Jaikus is also often more personal than on blogs. Although many share their Jaikus publicly, a lot of people prefer to share them privately with their friends.

Oh, and a short digression on the name: We came up with the name Jaiku because the posts on Jaiku resemble Japanese haikus. A haiku is a short poem about the moment that a person is living through even as they are writing it down. In Finland too the nomadic Lapp people share stories by singing Joikus. We liked the name Jaiku mainly because it had a fun sound to it. Those who want can also read in it a little reminder that actually the need we're addressing isn't anything new. The basic desire to tell others what you're up to, and have a sense of what they're doing, has been around forever and in all cultures.

Jaiku can really be seen as an aggregator as well as a distributor of personal information.  What are the main directives you were aiming for with Jaiku?

Our general aim is to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their presence (what they're doing, how they're feeling, where they're going). Jyri calls this social peripheral vision: the ability to have your finger on the pulse of your friends, family, and colleagues. Once you know what the people you care about are up to, you notice opportunities for social interaction that you would probably otherwise miss. Even just the simple knowledge that your loved ones are ok can have a lot of emotional value in an increasingly unstable world.

We think our key discovery has been to find an interaction model for posting and commenting across different channels. Jaiku posts can include embedded media like icons and photos. The service supports threaded conversation, and works smoothly from Web, to IM, to SMS, and clients. It integrates automatic updates like changes in your location, availability, etc. from the phone with Web feeds and manually posted Jaikus.

Our accomplishment especially on the mobile has been to bring the contact list to life. Presence information can be used to turn static, "dead" contact lists into dynamic, live ones. Some of our users have remarked that Jaiku Mobile makes the traditional S60 phone book obsolete. Once you start using   live contact list and seeing what your friends are up to, it can feel pretty lame to return to using a standard phone. It's exciting to imagine how presence information from Jaiku would enrich other Web services and desktop applications.

How is communication facilitated between users? Can you get a feed of someone else's Jaikus, or even a feed of your own Jaikus?

You can get feeds of your own and other people's Jaikus in RSS and Atom format, or using our APIs. In a few weeks, you can also use your IM client t  follow your Jaiku contacts and post new Jaikus.

Also, the next release of Jaiku Mobile for both S60 and Java phones will display the Jaikus from your contacts and support commenting. Commenting has become a central part of the service, so making that work smoothly across all clients is very important to us at the moment.

You've recently introduced your beta version for the Nokia S60.  How's that going so far?

Starting with S60 was a conscious decision for us. It was the best platform for developing an application that enabled people to share their presence from their phone on the Web. There are over 100 million Nokia S60 handsets out there,  and we knew we could do something that most people though  was impossible. We're now working on a Java version that is compatible with a lot more handsets. It is currently in private beta.

That said, our interest is not to monopolize the clients. Rather, our vision from the start has been to use open protocols like Jabber and develop APIs so it'll be easy for other people to write clients and connect their own Web services to Jaiku. Large chuncks of the S60 client have been open-source  and we're going to continue contributing to relevant open source projects. We think it'd be cool if in the future people could also write their own visualizations etc. for mobile handsets in e.g. Flash or Python using our client APIs.

Did you have to break a deal with Nokia in order to create this beta version?

Jaiku Mobile does not rely on any proprietary Nokia APIs - the nice part about Symbian and S60 is that it's much more open than just about any other major mobile platform. Aside from that, Nokia has shown a lot of positive interest in what we're doing, and we try to keep in as close touch as possible with our contacts there. One of our developers, Mika, was recently appointed a "Forum Nokia Champion" due to his pioneering work in building the Symbian development community. Quite a few Nokia employees are Jaiku users, and their feedback has been invaluable to us.

What complications did you have in creating a mobile application for Jaiku?

Making a back-end that can support mobile clients is a lot more complex than building your average Web site. It makes developing some features slower, but it's also a competitive advantage because we've solved some pretty hard problems that enable efficient client-server communication. On  the S60 side, porting for S60 3rd Edition took longer than we expected. We found quite a few bugs in the S60 platform and had to work our way around those.

What's next for Jaiku?

The next step is to open a developer section with documentation on how to use our APIs, so the independent developers who are working Jaiku desktop clients, making mashups, and developing mobile clients for other platforms get better support. This will be released by early April.

In addition to the APIs we plan to introduce a bunch of new features in the next couple of months. These include connectivity to existing IM services, a Java client, and support for groups. We've also been experimenting with media sharing and SMS notifications. Once the basic feature set is ready, we plan to start working with our local user communities to offer versions of Jaiku in different languages. We'll also be working to improve our integration with the coolest other online services.

Steekr is an online storage solution that is highly integrated with media services.  Their product is among those few companies that is at the forefront of the move towards the digital home.  They've garnered over 250,000 members, and provide online storage and backup functionalities that are scalable to whatever it is you need.  Media, like your DVDs can be stored using Steekr and played on another device, really bringing about a value proposition that will make their services ready for consumers. 

What exactly is Steekr, and how did it come about?

Steekr is an online storage service with a "store, share and play" concept based on the steek technology and edited by Agematis.
Our virtual hard drive is a private secured online data storage area, a sharing space with friends or colleagues for any data (work, pictures, movies, etc.), with streaming and slideshow capabilities (Music, Pictures, Videos). We also have PC an Mac software for online Data synchronization on the net. To be complete I must precise the data are accessible from any connected device (PC, GSM, Smartphone, TV, etc.).

Steekr's technology is a AJAX/web2.0 based convergent platform with the online storage functionalities Steekr and also a strong backup application called Steekup. Two different usage, only one platform.

For the word "steek", it came from "stick" "stickness" "post-it" to explain the end customer we can help him to have is online data not floating is the cyberspace but attached to a secure platform.

What are some of the challenges you've faced with developing media solutions for consumers?

Today the challenge is to be accessible from everywhere and anytime and also through a maximum devices like smartphones or IPTV box.
Another difficulty is to manipulate several different multimedia format sometime not compatible with the client equipment. How can we explain the end user that is divx is not compatible with is phone or his IPTV box ? So we are to transcode all format to other supported by mobile phone, computers or TV box.
An actual point we adress is the DRM on music or video. How can whe explain to the end customer that the legal files with DRM are not interoperable when the MP3 files can be accessible from almost all the devices ?! We are working hard on this challenge and will be the firt to have a "network DRM solution" with online interoperability capabilites.

How is media shared using Steekr?

Another usage is having your MP3 online to listen to your music from anywhere. This usage will be more popular with new wi-fi connected devices in the future. You will be able listen from your playlist in your bedroom, your kitchen or your office directly from your online hard drive.

How is media, such as DivX, able to be stored using Steekr, and played on another device?

First, we have an online divx streaming plugin. You can test it here by selecting the file and click on "Play."

Steekr is an open plateform. We have an API for applications that can read/write content on the drive. For exemple we are working for an ISP in France called NeufCegetel, and created a product called Neufgiga. Neufgiga is powered by steek, we are doing the PC/Mac application, the web interface, the mobile interface and NeufCegetel is doing the IPTV interface through our API. Today NeufCegetel customers can see their DivX on their PC/Mac, mobile and TV!

You can see here the mobile interface:
http://preview.steekr.com/test/

What are the next steps for Steekr?

Next steps for the product : online document edition, online content store with major partnership, more space and less cost for the end user!

HomeAndTell is an online social network that creates neighborhoods for you to converse and share ideas, hopes, and desires regarding your home.  Need advice on where to find a certain product for your yard?  You can go to HomeAndTell to get the advice you need, see what other people are doing with their homes, and get ideas from real people.  While established companies and publications such as Better Homes & Gardens produces a magazine for home life, there is little interaction, and one can often feel as though they cannot relate to what's being shown in a magazine.  HomeAndTell aims to break down the barriers between people and offer a space for the sharing of home ideas from those that have experienced it, and are continuing to seek beauty within their environments.

See Allen's write up of HomeAndTell on CenterNetworks here.

I recently got a chance to chat with HomeAndTell co-founders Christine and Jay (very early one morning!).  Below is our interview.

What's the mission you have with HomeAndTell?

To be a place where everyone can share their home and everything they love about it. Their favorite furniture, or even the experience of buying ur first home, which is incidently how we started the idea.  We were looking through magazines and found we couldn't really relate to what they were showing, and we didn't know anybody who lived in places like that, and we felt like something was wrong there. There was nothing genuine. So we built on this, and felt that HomeAndTell could offer something more genuine and relatable.

How's that going?

We're excited. We have a lot of people on the board and contributing. We're diferentiating ourselves by being more open and warm, so we have a community manager that's been in the industry for 16 years, and she really makes sure we have a warm and homey feel.  In terms of how people are using the site, there's a ton of content on the neighborhood boards and people are excited about finding a place where they can connect. It's interesting when you look through the things people are posting; someone will showcase their house and people will ask about how something was built, or ask for advice. There's this interaction you can't get from a magazine. 

How are you going about making the site homier?

It's in the little things. How u invite people to do participate. We're analytical, so when we asked people to participate, it was very structured. But our community manager is really the voice of our website and delivers a particular message.  She delivers it in such a way that it really gets across to our demographic.
It's really through the way she's just warmed the site through the copy you read. It's like having a very helpful hostess that really makes you feel comfortable.  It adds to the type of service users get, and it attracts the crowd we want. We're going after the average person.

What are the key social components of HomeAndTell?

It's a great place for people to add ideas, and people's homes are unique, so it's really a reflection of who you are at that point in your life, and your environment is very important.  It has more meaning than just a roof and walls.

People can rate homes, and it's not just 1 - 5 stars. We didn't think that was appropriate. We want a positive environment. We have a lot of ways to comment.  We're looking to allow anyone to comment without registering.  They'll be able to ask advice and other questions. You can send private messages to another person. You can also rate neighborhoods.  we try to keep it simple. We don't want the technology to be the center of the site. 

We also have a home library section where we sell content that we've purchased for the site, and we really want to open that up to the community. We're going to be adding articles about us.
 
The interesting thing we'd like to build on is the ability to look for ideas.  When we get more content we'd like to be able to searach. For example, say you want to do something in your yard. Normally you'd surf the web or grab a magazine and look for ideas there. But once we get more content, you'll be able to do just that on HomeAndTell, for a very narrow search (weekend project for a certain price, etc.)

You're sort of taking the most enjoyable aspects of the home and putting them into an online social network.  How are you finding your users are taking advantage of the features you have at HomeAndTell?

It's what we'd hoped for.  People are asking questions and people that put the posts up are coming back and answering questions.  People are really proud of what they've done and they're very open. 

What features are you looking to add in the future?

We have a few ideas, but anything big we do will be based on what the community wants. We don't want to assume what they want.  I think we're going to do survey's to find out what people want.