StartupBooster.com

Boosting NorthStar.ws – A Tool That Helps Traveling Safe for School Children

Guna — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:15:56 +0000

I was recently contacted by Kunal Ashar, the founder of NorthStar School Bus Tracking System. Mr. Ashar seems to have extensive experience within the technology and GPS systems. In 2010 he launched an online tool, India’s first, that monitors and tracks the location, safety, security and activity of school children and school buses in real time.

This is not just another website startup, this online tool is supported by a state of the art backend system that process and tracks every school children, buses and their geographic location and reports it to the parents, etc.

Below is what Mr. Ashar has to say about his technology and the website startup.

What is the URL of Your Website?

http://northstar.ws

What is Your Vision for this Business?

NorthStar is one of India’s first and leading cloud-based products that monitors and track the location, safety, security and activity of school children and school buses in real time.

It’s not just another GPS product – instead, it’s focused on ensuring that few or no school children are injured or die in school bus accidents. Or, in cases of accidents, the parents, authorities, community, officials and hospitals are notified instantly and automatically.

It takes a unique approach to child safety, by *helping* school bus drivers and transporters become better and more caring drivers. It combines the power of GPS, GSM, GPRS, GIS, RFID, webcam and many more sensors in a “black box” that transmits signals to NorthStar’s Amazon cloud-based server farm, that analyzes billions of bytes of data every few minutes, and intelligently (self-learning algorithm) detects problems, violations, rash driving, accidents, etc., and notifies the authorized people over SMS within 2-5 seconds of the incident.

It’s built on open source technologies including Apache Tomcat, Apache MQ, Java, JSF, Spring, Hibernate, EhCache and Jasper.

What is the Business Plan or model?

We charge end-users – parents – a minuscule monthly subscription fee – to monitor the safety of their children when they travel on school buses.

Why Did You Start this Website?

We (the founders) all have children who travel by school buses every day. We were concerned about their safety, and also had no visibility on what time the buses would reach our homes or reach the schools. We wanted to build a service and a product that could help parents like us, and schools like ours, ensure the safety of the children and prevent accidents.

How are You Planning to market it?

Online, social, direct marketing to schools, parents and bus fleet owners.

Who are the Founders of this Website?

Kunal Ashar

Where are You Located?

Bangalore, India

When Did you Start this Website?

June 2010

How are you Different from Your Competitors?

Others vendors are simply GPS or tracking providers. They have no focus on a specific problem, and their products and interfaces are too complex for parents, school principals and transporters. Instead, NorthStar focuses solely on schools, and makes the experience for them easy and simple.

Please visit NorthStar.ws to learn more about this. I could see this tool being used in other parts of the world to get school children home safely.

Getting the Right Education for Your Next Startup

Guna — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:02:11 +0000

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for best online colleges.

With the democratic spirit of the internet (where seemingly anyone can come up with a good idea, run with it, and make millions), it can be incredibly tempting to just draw a line in the sand, start brainstorming, and launch into the next greatest internet startup immediately. And it is true that there is a lot of merit behind a great idea, but if you have a great education or mix of minds behind that idea, the value of the idea itself increases tenfold.

Valuable Educations to Have Behind a Startup

There are a variety of educational backgrounds that could prove invaluable to creating the next great online startup. Having a general understanding of each of them can definitely help because than at least you know who to consult when you reach complications in drafting your startup idea. Of course, having an intimate understanding of any potential background area to a startup will also help a great deal.

Communications

This is perhaps the blanket degree for online startups. Depending on the program, communications studies can cover online media studies, online marketing, web design, journalism, video production, and mass media studies. Most, if not all, of these concentrations in communication can prove to be valuable, but I think I would hold online marketing and online media studies to be some of the most important. Simply studying the history of media on the internet and how online ventures have thrived in the past can really help idea and plans when it comes to your own online venture. A degree in communications will give you a lot of base knowledge to help you determine whether a given idea would be successful.

Business

Other important parts of any venture, online or not, are the areas of logistics, finance, and operations. Getting an education in business studies gives you a level head and practical mindset so you can iron out the realistic elements (initial investment, upkeep costs, manpower) of any online business endeavor. Having a well-rounded education in business may not be required for every online startup, but once any startup takes off enough, you will want someone with a business education.

Computer Science

Any online venture should take at least a tiny bit of programming knowledge. More likely (especially with the amount of professional websites using PHP, Javascript, and jQuery), any idea you have for the next big online business should take an immense knowledge of computer science. Sure, not all online business ideas even require a computer science degree, but knowing what is capable through online programming lets you know whether your startup idea is even feasible. It will never hurt to have at least some surface-level knowledge about the field of computer science and the current limitations in modern programming.

English or Speech

Having the ability to communicate ideas well and translate them either through speech or writing can make or break a business idea. Backgrounds in English and speech help with investment, recruitment, and marketing. Do you think Steve Jobs would be half as successful as he is without his amazing public speaking ability? I certainly think not. Never underestimate the development of good writing and speaking skills. They translate across virtually every field of study and are invaluable to any business.

Bottom Line

None of these educational fields are a requisite for any great online startup. But you do have to face some realizations: Starting an online business is a lot of work and can potentially be a huge investment. It’s incredibly easy to get in way over your head, but having any number of these educational backgrounds will serve you and your online startup extremely well.

Boosting Wed101.com – Making Wedding Planning Easy for Brides

Guna — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:22:12 +0000

Today we were contacted by Gene Milman of wed101.com – A startup that helps Brides with Wedding Planning.

This is a started that was launched in May of 2010. If you are looking for a tool to help plan your important day, then check out Wed101.com. We had the following questions for Gene.

What is the URL of Your Website?

www.wed101.com

What is Your Vision for this Business?

Wed101.com is a new startup website looking to revolutionize the way brides plan their weddings. The idea is simple, a bride becomes a member of our site (for free) and with our unique web application tool she is given a list of top quality vendors in her area. Brides can find everything from venues to DJ’s in our system, this way everything she needs is all in one place. Once she has selected her list of potential vendors, she then contacts the vendor and works out the specific details with them. Once terms are finalized, the bride comes back to our site and inputs the contract amount details. Because we allow vendors to be a part of our site for free, they must give a rebate/cash back to our brides if they choose them from our site. This way, brides are able to save a significant amount of money just by using our website. Rebates are normally anywhere from 5-15%, when you take into consideration that the average wedding costs $30,000, that could be a nice return that the bride gets back.

What is the Business Plan or model?

We want to revolutionize the way brides plan their weddings. We want to take as much hassle out of planning a wedding as we can, while at the same time providing the brides with top quality vendors. We also want to save our brides money because weddings are expensive, every dollar saved is going to help. Our business plan is to get in front of as many brides as possible by networking and securing relationships with existing vendors in the industry. With our sponsor system, vendors can refer brides to our site and they will receive 10% of the total rebate money the bride gets back. It’s a win win situation for both the bride and the vendor/sponsor.

Why Did You Start this Website?

Simply because there is nothing exactly like this out there. Being in the wedding industry also gave us great insight on the struggles of planning a wedding, with our website the majority of those struggles are eliminated.

How are You Planning to market it?

Our main marketing model is going to be in the form of sponsors. Basically, anyone that refers a bride to our site will receive 10% of the total rebate money the bride gets back from the vendors she chooses. For a $30,000 wedding (which is average) and an average total rebate of 10%, a sponsor can look to make $300+ from a single bride. This is very powerful for someone that works with brides on a daily basis and can easily refer upwards of 10 brides a month.

Who are the Founders of this Website?

Yanni Elyash and Alex Shilkrut.

Where are You Located?

Chicago, Illinois

When Did you Start this Website?

May 2010

How are you Different from Your Competitors?

There are many websites out there that deal in wedding planning. Most just give tips and guides, a few let you find vendors as well. However, we have yet to find one with a system like ours where brides are given the opportunity to select top quality vendors and get money back in the process.

Tell Me More About You or Your Business:

Yanni runs a successful wedding design studio and works with hundreds of brides a year. We know that there is a market for a site like ours and that brides would see the value in it.

Please visit Wed101.com for more information.

Boosting ZipRecruiter – Makes Hiring Faster, Easier and Cheaper

Guna — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:31:35 +0000

Today we are reviewing ZipRecruiter.com, a site that makes hiring faster, easier and cheaper for everyone involved.

We all know that hiring is not easy. When hiring someone, we are inundated with so many resumes and the recruiter have to make the right choice. Websites like ZipRecruiter could definitely help you save time and money. Zip Recruiter seems to work like a job distribution and job aggregation service. Jobs that are posted on ZipRecruiter is fed to 30+ niche online job posting boards including Craigslist, Yakaz, indeed, eBay Classifieds, etc. The tool also allows applicants to track and screen resumes.

We interviewed Rachel Dotson from ZipRecruiter and this is what Rachel had to say:

What is the URL of Your Website?

http://www.ziprecruiter.com

What is Your Vision for this Business?

ZipRecruiter’s mission is to make hiring faster, easier, and cheaper than ever before. With just one submission employers can post jobs to more than 25 of the web’s leading job boards and social networks. To ease the screening process, they can opt to include a short quiz to gauge applicant knowledge and fit. All applicants are aggregated into a single list in ZipRecruiter, where recruiting teams can work together to rate, label, share, and track candidates.

What is the Business Plan or model?

ZipRecruiter users can select from several month-to-month plans, which range in price from $59 to $199. More details about the pricing and what’s included in each plan is available at http://www.ziprecruiter.com/pricing

Why Did You Start this Website?

Tired of the tedious and often expensive nature of existing online job boards, ZipRecruiter’s four co-founders set out to fix a problem they experienced regularly in their professional lives. They started ZipRecruiter as a side venture while working at other early to mid-stage startups.

How are You Planning to market it?

ZipRecruiter employs a number of inbound and outbound marketing strategies, and are proud to say that nearly 1/3 of our new users come from word-of-mouth.

Who are the Founders of this Website?

Ian Siegel is a co-founder and the CEO; his co-founders include Joe Edmonds, Ward Poulos, and Will Redd.

Where are You Located?

Santa Monica, CA

When Did you Start this Website?

March 2010

How are you Different from Your Competitors?

Job board distribution was an untapped market when we created ZipRecruiter. Until recently, there wasn’t really anyone else in the space. Aside from our incredibly intuitive UI and wealth of features (www.ziprecruiter.com/features), the ZipRecruiter team is fully committed to the Customers First mentality. Perhaps the most frequently asked question in the ZipRecruiter office is “How can we make this better for the users?”

Tell Me More About You or Your Business:

Entrepreneur Magazine named ZipRecruiter 1 of 3 job-focused startups leading the way in 2012.

Please visit ZipRecruiter.com to learn more about this online job posting tool.

Listening to Your Own Advice – How to Make Money On the Internet

Guna — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:33:08 +0000

One of the most gratifying parts of operating a self-help website is that I hear from people who’ve seen success in making money on the internet. All this because many of them have been following my website and others BUT they have actually made an effort to follow through. They were persistent with their goals and achieved their success.

Sometimes I read the emails from these successful people and I tell myself that “wow, I should read all of my blog postings and or implement half the advice I give people on this blog.”

I am sure you all know why I am saying this today. Startup Booster website could use a tune-up right now. I know I have made big goals to make this blog a success. Although it has been just a hobby and I don’t spend more than a couple of hours in a week, I believe time has come to give face lift for my website.

Few thoughts for my own website makeover:

Regular Posting. I have made commitments to make regular postings on this website. However, it doesn’t seem that way. Although I share with many of you over my newsletter, I don’t post as many blog postings as I want to. I have a few more hours that I am not using properly. I have made a commitment to spend a little extra on this website.

User Friendly. Although I believe the website is user friendly, I think I can make a few more modifications to make it simpler. I think this will not only help attract more visitors, it will make the site sticky – yes to keep the visitors coming back to the site often. I will be playing around with fonts and a few other setup within the page.

Ad Testing. As most of you will know, I have not used this site to monetize for the longest. I am sure many of you would have recognize that. However, over the last couple of weeks I have been playing around with Google Adsense. It made me realize how much money I left on the table. What do I mean by that? Well it means, on a daily basis, I lost nearly 15 to 20 dollars on the table all these days. It means I could have made 15 to 20 dollars a day just by adding Google Adsense. Today, my Google Adsense Revenue is doing well and I am making a small income. My goal is to play around with Google Adsense a little more and or look for affiliate opportunities.

Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur. I have a backlog of sites I need to review. I have made an effort to make this automatic. I will be posting more website reviews. After all this website grew on reviewing other websites.

I have a few other thoughts on what I need to do to tune-up my website to make money on the internet. But for now, if I can just make the above changes, I think I will be happy. Then I will go back and read many of my other postings and newsletter.

If you have not signed up for my newsletter, please do so. I provide many insights on how to make money online.

PS> I wanted to write this today because I feel that we could all be reading many websites and blogs but if you don’t make the effort to sit down and do the work, there is no way you could make money. Sometimes you all just need to follow your own advice. Just follow what you teach others.

Why Micro Niche Sites will Help Make Money On the Internet

Guna — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:36:24 +0000

Micro niche websites are the latest thing in making money online. The niche website helps to narrow down your website to a certain product which will give you a more specific SEO ranking. You eliminate much of the SEO competition, which will make you more money.

What is a Micro Niche Website?

The micro niche website is based on a very narrow niche. Many niche sites are just blogs that people have written on a specific product. This niche helps to build a better website for more specific customers. This latest trend in marketing is to narrow down the SEO competition; this will allow you to get truer hits on your website. Many of today’s marketing techniques use this method. It is a good way to make money on the internet without having to spend much money.

How the Micro Niche Site Works

The first thing you need to do to make sure that your niche site is going to work, is to make it to be focused on a product that unique and searched for often. When you center your niche site around one specific product, you will get a better SEO listing. A simple longtail keyword with fewer competitors will work. There are many keyword tools available on the internet that you need to use to find these keywords. Once you find that keyword you will need to register a domain site that includes that keyword. That is the main goal to having your site listed high in the rankings on search engines. Use that keyword in the title, meta description and throughout your website as much as possible. Your site needs to be unique, attractive and full of as much information as you can find. Well written useful sites attract the most traffic, something that will fit in today’s world. The more informative your niche site is the more money you will make using this system.

Why a Micro Niche Site Makes Money for You

Most of the latest micro niche sites make money because they are blogs. Everyone loves to get on the internet and write about what they know. This is a good way to make money with micro niche sites. You can register for Adsense, Amazon or several other sites that will pay you to place ads on your site. The reason many micro niche sites are making money is because they are worldwide. Getting on the internet and just writing about what you know is easy for anyone to do.

If you are looking for a way to make money on the internet, then this technique is very easy to use. Making money with a micro niche site is the latest marketing tool. If you can write well, then just use your imagination and be unique. Everyone is looking for the latest new thing to make money on the internet. Although you can make money on the internet using these niche sites do not think it will all be roses and sunshine, it does take a lot of time and patience. Many sites take some fine tuning before they show real promise.

5 Tips to Make Money with the CPA Networks

Guna — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:42:57 +0000

There are certain things you need to know about CPA networks. First, CPA, sometimes referred to as “Cost Per Action” is a type of internet marketing where consumers only need to carry out specific ‘actions’ for the referring affiliate to get paid. This means that it is a very easy way of making money online, as no product or service needs to be purchased. There are many types of actions required for the consumer to do. Some of the simple tasks are requesting a free sample of a product, filling in a form or signing up for a free trial of a product. There are many other cases, where the consumer needs to make a small purchase to try a new product or service. The great thing with CPA is that those are actions that involve little or no cost to the consumer, and is therefore ready to take the steps.

What is a CPA Network?

CPA networks are middle-companies or organizations which stand between the advertisers or companies that are ready to pay for leads and affiliates or publishers who want to make money for referring consumers to the offers of the companies.

How CPA Networks Work

Companies that have products or services need to make their products known to the public, but it is not possible for them to do everything alone. Therefore, they look for CPA networks, as those are organizations with a pool of publishers or affiliates with websites to promote the offers. There are many CPA networks, and most of them have hundreds or thousands of companies with different offers, paying as high as $100 for each valid referral.

How To Make Money With CPA Networks

In CPA, as a publisher or affiliate, the consumer does not need to buy the products or services before you will make money. This makes people to think that it is easy to make money with CPA. Of course, it is easy, but if you are not following the right strategies, you would not make anything. This is what happens to thousands of affiliates today. They are not making any money, while there are many others making thousands of dollars per day.

To join the CPA money-makers, these are the 5 tips for you:

Weekly payment – Join CPA networks that pay on a weekly basis. There are some which pay monthly but the best thing is not to let your money be tied down for too long, as there have been cases of advertisers or CPA networks going out of business without notice.
Many offers – Join CPA networks that have many offers for you to promote.
High commission – Join CPA networks that pay higher. Advertisers join different networks and pay different rates of commission for the same promotion. Therefore, you need to investigate before signing up for an offer.
Traffic and leads tracking – Good networks have a good tracking system for the traffic and the leads you have generated. They also have a system for you to monitor your earnings. Therefore, those are the CPA networks that you should join.
Reputation – There are thousands of CPA networks out there. The danger is that you may not be paid if you join the network that does not have a hood reputation. There are good ones with history of prompt payment, good customer support, and various advertising tools to help you make money. Those are the CPA networks that you should join.

You will make money with CPA networks if you consider those tips. Some other important things to consider are:

Take advantage of YouTube traffic for the CPA offers you are promoting.
Promote offers requiring simple tasks like submitting zip codes and emails.
Promote offers that people are crazy about. For instance, offers for video or computer games perform well.
Do not chase offers with high payout like $100. They are not easy to convert. Offers of $0.5 to $2 perform better.

The major challenge is getting approved to CPA networks. Make sure you are honest with your application, as those companies are very strict when it comes to accepting new affiliates. Make sure you follow their terms and conditions as that will always guarantee that you are paid at the end of the week.

5 Ways to Make 2012 Your Best Blogging Year

Guna — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:45:42 +0000

The New Year, 2012 brings a fresh beginning and the unique chance to start anew once again. Do what you did in 2011 or you can turn 2012 into a memorable year by turning your blog into a money making machine – to make money on the internet. Look at 2012 as a new beginning for your blog. Look over the next few days and take a few hours to reflect on your failures and successes from 2011. Ask yourself why you didn’t achieve the goals you’ve set out to do last year. Ask yourself why you didn’t make the money you wanted to make on the internet.

If you are doubting yourself, just listen to Michaelangelo who said that “the greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Don’t be one of the 95% of the people who are going after “realistic goals”, go after the top 5% and set your goals above your competitors. You will spend the same amount of time achieving the mediocre goals as you would with bigger goals. Then why set your goals so low? Aim high for 2012. I wish each and every one of you that follow my blog the vest best for 2012. Happy New Year.

Below are Five Ways to Make 2012 Your Best Blogging Year

Be a Serious Blogger

You have to take your blog seriously or else you are not going to achieve your goals. Because the startup cost for a blog is so low, many people tend to spend too much time in the beginning and then close to nothing after the first few weeks. As I mentioned in my book, it won’t happen overnight. You will have to take your blog seriously and learn to treat it like an investment or like a real business. If you had paid $150,000 for your blog, will you leave it for four weeks before you return to the business? Well visit your blog often and pay attention to what your audience are looking for.

Be Yourself

A blog is a personal site where you get to share your knowledge with your fans and it should remain that way. It is about building relationships. You and your readers will define your blog as it grows. Your readers will continue to help you build your blog BUT that will happen only if you be yourself first. Don’t start a blog pretending to be someone else OR don’t heighten the expectation of your readers by committing to things that you can’t deliver. Just be honest and share what you know with your readers.

Have a Mailing List

No mailing list No Money. It is that simple. If you are not building a quality mailing list along with your blog, you are wasting your time. If you want your blog to make money, you need to invest in a mailing list solution. I recommend Aweber whom I have been using for more than 2 years now. Their fees are affordable for newbies and as your list grows, your profits will justify the fee increases. Without a list, you have no one to speak to when you post an article or talk about a product, or whatever. Start building a mail list today.

Post Regularly

You MUST post on a regular basis. Now I am not the most fit to say that but like many of you, I am setting my goals high for 2012 as well. Your posting habit will dictate your blog success in making money on the internet. Like all of you, I started off this blog and have not made a single penny for months. Why? Because I was not posting as much as I should have. Once I started engaging my readers through a mailing list and postings, things started to turn around. Now, I could still do a good job on this and I hope like all of you, I will maintain a consistent posting schedule.

Own Your Blog

You have to get your own domain name for your blog. If you are using a blog provider like Blogspot or Wordpress.com, you have to switch today. It doesn’t cost a lot to have your own domain name hosted with a hosting provider. This way you will grow your blog and you will own full access to your blog. You can do whatever you want with it and you can choose to monetize it whichever way you want with it. There aren’t that kind of flexibility with other blog providers.

——–

At the end of the day, it is a decision you have to make for yourself. You need to decide if you want to take your blog seriously or not. It is all up to you. I recommend you take Michaelangelo’s quote and stick it on a sticky note to your computer screen. Just do it and you will see how powerful that is.

I wish you success in 2012. Happy New Year!

10 Tips for Using Google Webmaster Tool

Guna — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:28:23 +0000

To help out website owners, Google released its very own toolset called Google Webmaster Tools. This set of tools will provide solutions for problems related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can start using these tools by verifying that you are the owner of the site. Furthermore, learn the tips below to get you started with these webmaster tools:

Crawl Stats – This report found on the Diagnostics, summarize the crawling activity of Google for the last three months. Three more reports are found in this category: pages crawled per day; kilobytes crawled a day and time consumed for downloading a page. These three stats are useful for checking the performance of your WebPages online.

Not Found Errors – You would want to as much as possible to avoid 404 pages on your site. This is a problem which drives site visitors away. This webmaster tool found on the top right of the dashboard will gather inactive URLs on your site and redirect your visitors to the working web pages.

Defective Meta Descriptions and Title Tags – The webmaster toll have way too find the faulty URLs on your website. Just check into the Diagnostic and HTML suggestions to see problems concerning title atgs and meta tags of web pages. Frequent problems on these tags involve too short or too long descriptions or duplicate ones. Remember that title and meta tags have huge impact on page rankings.

Top Search Results – Though Google Analytics is helpful, the webmaster tool is also helpful in terms of showing the specific position of your site within Google. This will be helpful in giving you directions on what keywords to prioritize.

Links on the Site – Check into the sitelink section contained on the Site Configuration to take control of the links from your site that is shown. You can decide which of these links you want to be blocked.

Keyword Research – This is another tool which displays the list of keywords that are most relevant words that Google found in your site while performing the indexing process. This is a good guide in determining the keyword and phrases that your site is being ranked.

Reconsideration Request – You can’t afford to ignore this important tool interface that helps you tell Google to take another look at your site. This is usually useful if your site isn’t indexed in Google maybe caused by penalization for some reasons. Through reconsideration request, you can contact Google that you’ve fixed and cleaned any errors in your site and you are not violating the Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Google’s webmaster guidelines – It is strongly recommended to read carefully the guidelines before using the Google webmaster tools. By following the guidelines Google will be able to index, and rank your site smoothly. You need to read its Quality Guidelines to be acquainted with the unlawful practices that would cause penalization of your sites.

Content Analysis – This is a new feature in Google webmaster tools which supplements to the crawl error diagnostics. This will help site owners to improve the contents of their sites since this tool will give you feedbacks about the issues and problems that Google encountered while trying to index your site. The content analysis will show 3 valuable parts of the site and gives its diagnostic results. These are the Title tag issues, Meta Description Issues, and Non-indexable content issues.

Site Verification – In order for the Google webmaster tools to be useful in your site, you must first verify your site. You must also to verify that you are the owner of a specific site. You are allowed to add 1000 sites in your Google webmaster tool account. This step doesn’t affect the site’s performance and in the indexing process so with the Google’s search results. Here are the instructions from “Google webmaster tools help” on how to add and verify a site:

To add and verify a site:

Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.
Click Add a site, and type the URL of the site you want to add. Make sure you type the entire URL, such as http://www.example.com/
Click Continue. The Site verification page opens.
(Optional) In the Name box, type a name for your site (for example, My Blog).
Select the verification method you want, and follow the instructions.

Guest post by Sasha.

Boosting PicYou.com – A Photo Sharing Platform with Custom Filters

Guna — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:38:02 +0000

PicYou.com offers you a user friendly platform for sharing photos which comes with custom filter effects on upload to enhance the images, it integrates with social media channels and aims to be a platform that is easy to use.

Photo Sharing on the internet has been around for many years now. Every now and then a new idea pops up with a twist. PicYou is a photo sharing site with a twist.

I thought their site was designed to attract businesses as well as individuals. It is an elegant design that would allow businesses to take advantage of a platform to market their brands.

Let me just point you to a few questions we’ve asked of one of the individual involved with the project, Joseph Ashburner.

Joseph has explained what the site is all about…

What is Your Vision for this Business?

PicYou.com is website offering users an easy to use and fun platform for instantly sharing photos online including integration with social media channels, custom filter effects on upload to enhance images, and social networking elements that take the idea of a photo sharing platform a step further. The idea is similar to the iPhone app Instagram but enhances the concept with access from any web based device and a wider scope of features.

What is the Business Plan or model?

Traditional display advertising and sponsorships with custom branded photo filters (patent pending technology) that allow sponsors to spread brand awareness and provide users with a unique filter effect to use on their photos.

Why Did You Start this Website?

Passion for photography and offering users an instant way to share their best photos.

How are You Planning to market it?

Our marketing plan involves PR and outreach to prominent tech blogs, PPC Display advertising, as well as Social Media promotions in order gain momentum on all levels of the marketing spectrum. Our outreach to startup booster and other startup sites of course also forms a part of this in our initial beta phases.

Who are the Founders of this Website?

Ivan Wong & Adam Oliver

Where are You Located?

San Franciso , USA

How are you Different from Your Competitors?

PicYou is aimed at providing the most simple and fun to use experience possible for users to share photos online within a non-cluttered and user friendly UI. There is already some strong competetion in the photo sharing niche. Below is a summary of a few of the points that we feel give PicYou the edge against it’s competition:

Ease of use – Leading photo sharing sites offer a great service but for the most part lack the edge of simplicity that lies at the core of PicYou. The site as as idiot proof as they come.
Custom filters – Our custom branded filter effects are a fun way to add an extra edge to snapshots and are a helluva fun to use. More importantly , this feature is unique to PicYou when compared with other leaders in the field.
Social media attributes – Features such the ability to follow other users, a customized homepage feed, the ability to “Like” other users photos, and the option to customize your profile add elements usually reserved for social networks to the mix to spice up the age old photo sharing formula.

Please visit the site, PicYou.com, and have a look for yourself. If you like it, please share it with your friends. If you have comments or feedback for Joseph, please add them below this post.

StartupBooster.com

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