Backed By Yammer #8217;s David Sacks, Fresh Launches A Site For Verified Consumer Gadget Reviews

When you’re ready to try a new product, Stephen Svajian, co-founder and CEO of a startup called Fresh, said that what you’re really looking for are recommendations from consumers like you — but the review systems on sites like Amazon are basically broken. That’s why he’s launching Fresh, a site that only allows someone to review a product if they’ve actually received a copy, and that does away with the five-star rating system.

When users are browsing the Fresh site, they can sign up to review products that they’re interested in, which essentially reserves them a spot in the virtual line. (They can move ahead in the line by promoting products to friends through Facebook, Twitter, or email.) Then manufacturers move down the list, sending units to each of the reviewers, and people can only post their reviews after they’ve received the product. Through that system, you can be reasonably sure that any reviews you see on the site come from people who have actually tried it out.

Svajian said the five-star system also has problems, because it tends to attract extreme opinions — you either love a product and give it five stars or hate it and give it one star, while people with positions in between are less likely to post at all. Fresh asks a simpler, more relevant question: Would you recommend the product to a friend, or not? You can also take a neutral position, and yes, people write short reviews as well, but the percentage of reviewers who would recommend a product is the first metric that you see.

Despite the flaws in the existing consumer review system, Svajian said that for most people, they’re more relevant than professional reviews.

“A big part of the differentiation around expert reviews is the perspective,” he said. “If I’m an expert [and I'm reviewing speakers] then I might measure decibels. But if I’m a regular consumer I don’t really care about decibels, just whether it’s loud enough for my use case. They just want to see what the user experience is like.”

There are a lot of hardware startups and Kickstarter-supported projects on the Fresh homepage, and Svajian said that’s not a coincidence. While he’s interested in working with big hardware manufacturers too, Svajian argued that Fresh is well-positioned to help new companies entering the hardware market with the help of trends like crowdfunding, but that haven’t built a big consumer brand yet. By sending out enough review units through Fresh, startups can ensure they get a critical mass of consumer reviews. For example, he noted that the Hidden Radio Bluetooth speaker has only received one review on Amazon, compared to eight on Fresh.

At the same time, Svajian pointed out that the reviewers aren’t being paid by the manufacturers, and their only obligation in return for receiving a free product is to post an honest review — there’s no expectation that they’ll review it positively.

Fresh was founded Svajian, George Truong (both formerly of Ybuy), and Yammer Chief Product Officer James Patterson. Yammer founder and CEO David Sacks is the startup’s lead investor. Svajian declined to specify how much money the company has raised so far, because he said he hasn’t closed the initial funding round yet.

The site has been live for the past couple of months, but is only officially launching today. Svajian said the company is still working out the details of the business model. It will involve the affiliate model and e-commerce in some way — in early testing, the team found that the challenge is to incorporate those elements while making it clear that Fresh is a reviews site, not an e-commerce site.

Crunchbase

DAVID SACKS Person:David SacksCompanies:Yammer, Geni, BizBash Media, GumGum, MyHeritage.com, Scribd, Phluant Mobile, PayPal, Salesforce Buddy Media

David O. Sacks is the Founder and CEO of Yammer, Inc. Sacks was previously the COO of PayPal until its acquisition by eBay. Subsequently, he founded Geni.com, a family tree building and networking website. He also produced and financed the hit movie Thank You For Smoking. David recently sold Yammer to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. David holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

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Splitsecnd Turns Any Car Into A Connected Car, Launches Plug-In Crash Detection Device

Many new cars now feature an automatic crash-detection system that will call 911 for you whenever you are in a crash that is bad enough for your airbags to inflate. Adding this kind of functionality to an older car is typically very costly, but Nashville-based startup Splitsecnd just launched an Internet-connected plugin for any car that offers the same kind of functionality and also lets you track your car’s location online. The device costs $199 plus a $14.95 monthly service fee and is now available for purchase on Splitsecnd’s website. It will ship within the next two weeks. The company hopes to start selling it at brick-and-mortar stores later this year.

Founded by Vanderbilt University graduates Chris Thompson (CEO) and William Green (CMO) in 2010, Splitsecnd raised $2.1 million from Tennessee Community Ventures and the team also participated in Nashville’s JumpStart Foundry program.

As Thompson and Green told me earlier today, they first wanted to just launch a mobile app that could be used in case of an emergency, but they quickly decided that in order to really provide the safety features they were looking for, they would have to offer a hardware solution. Users simply plug the Splitsecnd device into their car’s cigarette lighter and from then on, it will use its accelerometer to watch for a potential crash. As Thompson and Green stressed, the team put the device through strenuous safety tests, including at the University of Michigan’s crash labs, to ensure that it wouldn’t break in case of a crash (the outside is made of a hard plastic with metal on the inside) and wouldn’t start sending false alerts either.

The device will call the company’s New Hampshire-based call center when it detects an accident (or the driver presses the emergency button). The Splitsecnd features its own built-in speaker and microphone, as well as a battery, so it doesn’t rely on the car to work in case it gets thrown out of the plug. The device also features a USB plug, so you can still use your 12V plug to charge your phone.

Cell service for the Splitsecnd is offered through RACO Wireless, a company that specializes in machine-to-machine connectivity and that uses AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s networks. The service uses basic 2G technology, which is more than enough given that the device only needs to provide basic voice and data services.

In addition to the basic safety feature, the Splitsecnd also includes a GPS chip that powers the company’s “family finder” feature. This, the founders told me, allows a parent to track their kids while they are driving and it keeps a log of the last 10 trips, too. The company offers both an Android and iOS app for this feature.

Crunchbase

SPLITSECND Company:SplitSecndWebsite:splitsecnd.comLaunch Date:2010Funding:$2.1M

split|secnd brings automatic crash notification to every car on the road. The split|secnd device plugs into any car cigarette lighter and automatically alerts emergency responders and family members in the event of a car accident.The device is completely self-contained, totally portable and uses built-in sensors and communication equipment to transmit location and accident information to an emergency call center via the cellular network. split|secnd greatly reduces the response time of emergency responders and increases a crash victim’s chances of...

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Survata, VidIQ, And Five Other Startups Take The Stage At Founders Den Demo Night

I’m at Founders Den Demo Night, where seven startups are making their pitches to investors, press and other members of the tech community. As with most other demo events, these aren’t launches per se (we’ve covered most of the companies already), but it’s a good opportunity for us to highlight these startups and the fact that they’re part of the Founders Den community.

Founders Den describes itself as a “clubhouse” for entrepreneurs. In addition to the offices and co-working desks that it offers startups in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood, it does indeed have a clubhouse-style space. It’s also club-like in the fact that it’s invite-only and is usually looking for experienced entrepreneurs/more established startups — in fact, a number of the companies demonstrating today went through other incubators.

Here are the seven companies that are on-the-record (there are two that are still in stealth mode, so I’m not allowed to write about them yet). I’ll update with more details from their presentations.

Survata offers a “SurveyWall” for publishers, so that they can monetize their content without putting up a paywall, and in doing so it finds survey respondents for brands, agencies and universities. It was incubated by Y Combinator.

From the presentation: The company says that more than 1 million survey questions have already been answered.

Rollbar is an error-tracking product for developers. It was co-founded by Brian Rue, former CTO of Lolapps.

From the presentation: Rue said that there are already 200 companies actively using the product.

vidIQ offers analytics and other tools for video producers on YouTube to improve their distribution. It recently raised $800,000 in funding.

From the presentation: Customers already include a number of high-profile publishers, including TechCrunch-owner Aol and Revision3.

Clothia allows users to mix-and-match different outfits through its fashion website and iPad app. Users can also browse the outfits created by others in the community.

From the presentation: The iPad app doesn’t include many of the social features (they’re coming in April), but nearly 60 percent of users are already creating content, and 46 percent of them stay engaged from month to month.

Archy is a management and collaboration system for all your cloud storage services. It allows you to import your contacts and to share documents with them.

From the presentation: The current version is Google Drive only. It has 15,000 users, and 30 percent of them are sharing more fields through Archy than through the native Google app.

MOVL offers tools for creating content for multiple screens, particularly smart TVs. It launched its Kontrol.tv system last fall.

From the presentation: Movl showed off a number of products created on the platform including Swipe-it, which has been downloaded more than 300,000 times.

Namo Media aims to build better mobile advertising by focusing on “native” ads that appear in apps’ streams of content. It has raised $1.9 million from investors, including Google Ventures.

From the presentation: Co-founder Gabor Cselle was actually the only presenter tonight to take the stage for the second time — he presented an app called DrawChat at the last demo day, which he has since auctioned off.

Update: Managing partner Michael Levit also offered a “Founders Den report card,” where he said that in total, Founders Den companies have raised $140 million. However, he was only able to get data from 43 of the 85 total companies, so he estimated that the real number is probably “zeroing in on $200 million.” He added that “not all companies are created equal,” and in fact the top five companies (Dotcloud, Tout, Kaggle, Wanelo, and DataSift) account for more than half of the reported results. As for exits, he said that there have been five successful exits so far, including the $60 million acquisition of Socialcam by Autodesk, and three shtudowns.

Crunchbase

FOUNDERS DEN Company:Founders DenWebsite:foundersden.com

Founders Den is a “clubhouse for entrepreneurs” based in the SoMa district of San Francisco, CA.

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Engadget Podcast 336 - 03.23.13

There's a whole lotta new going on this week. A new flagship from Samsung, a new (successful) event for Engadget, new studio gear and -- most importantly -- a new chair for Tim. What isn't new is where you go to get it. As always, that's right here. Hosts: Tim Stevens, Peter Rojas, Brian Heater Producers: James Trew, Joe Pollicino Hear the podcast 01:15 - Samsung Galaxy S 4 official 27:43 - Engadget Expanded! 42:17 - SXSW 2013 54:09 - Oculus Rift Subscribe to the podcast [iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC). [RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator. [Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace. Download the podcast LISTEN (MP3) LISTEN (AAC) Contact the podcast Follow the hosts on Twitter: @bheater @Tim_Stevens @Engadget Send your questions to @Tim_Stevens Leave us a voicemail: (423) 438-3005 (GADGET-3005) E-mail us: podcast at engadget [dot] com

Facebook will put ads in Home for Android, just not at launch The Verge

Gamestick now available for preorder stake your claim for $79HD

The previously Kickstarter-funded games console has launched its pre-order page, powered by Amazon. You'll have to stump up the same $79 premium which nets you the same GameStick that those crowd-funders are getting. Pre-orders will ship once those early orders are fulfilled. However, anyone ponying up today can expect theirs to arrive a good few months before the global retail launch later this year. You also order those dock and case peripherals, priced up at $25 and $10, respectively. Pick any color (as long as it's white) at the source. Show full PR text

The inside story of Lenovo's ThinkPad redesign

"When you talk to end users about ports, they'll tell you how much they need them. They'll talk about the vast number of USB devices that they have. It's easy to hear that and determine that you need five or more ports based on what these people report. When you watch these people work, however, and you're more overt in your methods -- you rarely see that happening. "Sometimes, there's a conflict between what someone reports they need and what they require." So begins the backstory of the latest ThinkPad overhaul as told by Corinna Proctor, the senior research manager at Lenovo's User Research Center. Clearly versed in the art of separating whimsical wishes from bona fide requirements, she spoke to me in a phone interview alongside two of her colleagues in the run-up to today's unveiling of the redesigned ThinkPad T431s Ultrabook. The machine itself is still very much a ThinkPad -- it's black, it's understated and it's tough as nails -- but those who appreciate the evolution of technology will no doubt recognize some changes. Changes that began as mere notions some 18 months ago. Lenovo ThinkPad Terminator Edition (T431s prototype)See all photos