cellphone leather cases: 五月 2013

2013年5月14日星期二

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 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.

2013年5月13日星期一

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

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...