Streamy.com - RSS That Works For Everyone

Posted on May 29, 2007
Filed Under Elevator Pitch, Online Tools, Venture News |

Don and Jon present Streamy.com, a community RSS reader, which allows users to subscribe to feeds and read stories, but also to share and discuss them with their friends and groups in real-time.

Our front page aggregates millions of stories from thousands of sites and delivers personalized recommendations so users can see the most interesting and most relevant items of the day, week, or month. Stories are promoted to the front page based on common actions (sharing, saving, discussing), and each front page is customized to the user. Check out our first screencast.

Features:

We are finishing up and testing our feature set, and will bring on additional users starting June 15th. Our featureset is a collection of things that are well understood, but in the combination and integration thereof, we are able to reach a synergy between communities and content that has not been tackled yet. The common concepts of stories, friends, messages, and groups are all here, but our experience is entirely real-time, transparent, and integrated. If you remember, what made Facebook special were two things: exclusivity and the profile wall. We believe that “step one” is to evolve the way people interact – and that’s thankfully among many more steps that we’ve thought up.

Q. Why do you launch a business?
A. Absolutely nothing beats having full creative control and the opportunity to implement it. Jon and I are the most passionate users on Streamy, and the chance we were given to launch the business was one we couldn’t ignore. We came out west after we finished school with some ideas, a craving for adventure, and opportunity to start something from the ground up. Your name, Venture Itch, sums it up very nicely.

Q. Where did your idea come from?
A. Streamy is one eventual evolution of many ideas. Other sites have attempted to help people take advantage of RSS, but we think their execution is generally unsuccessful and unexciting. When it comes down to it, we’ve created something that we want to use ourselves, all the time. At the most abstract levels, we strongly believe in the Web as a collection of services – syndicated content being one such service. There is a position among these services and their consumers that is largely unpopulated, though the opportunity to take that position is coming up fast.

Q. What is your elevator pitch?
A. Centralized content aggregation and filtration powered by social networks. We’re able to collect stories from your favorite websites and blogs, and present them to you and your friends in dynamic and interesting ways. We engage our users with new tools to meet friends, communicate instantly, read and share stories, and find interesting content that would otherwise be buried or out of reach.

Q. How is your proposition different from competitors?
A. We offer an environment that is real-time, fast, and honestly, fun. As a blogger, you’re among your peers and readers, sharing stories and talking about things as they happen. As a reader, you’re able to stay organized, connected, and up to date. Our competitors range widely because we are built on many different components. We’ve got the front page feel of Digg, the social networking of Facebook, the presence of Twitter, and the messaging of Meebo. Again, however, we infuse these components into each other, which creates a really unique experience.

Q. Why will you succeed? What are your biggest successes so far?
A. We will succeed because we are useful, straightforward, and valuable. We have created something that is greater than the sum of its parts, and we think that our users will understand that quickly. I believe our greatest success so far is actually implementing our first product and accurately reflecting our plan and ideas. Execution is everything, and I think we’re going to nail it.

Q. How will you make money?
A. We see opportunity in advertising, but not as it exists today. We’re doing a few things differently – treating advertisement as content, and treating advertisement as the promotion of a genuine relationship. The age of banner advertising is over, and the Google approach works best in certain contexts. Streamy creates unbelievable transparency between authors and readers, and we’ve found that to create such relationships on a commercial scale is extremely valuable.

Q. Have you received funding? If so, how much and from whom? If you need funding at all?
A. We’ve been received well, and have attracted angel investors including Driftwood Investments, LLC. We have secured sufficient capital to survive year one.

Sphere: Related Content

Comments

7 Responses to “Streamy.com - RSS That Works For Everyone”

  1. ran on May 29th, 2007 3:55 am

    cant wait for the public Beta, the product looks very exciting. Does anyone know what software is used for the Streamy.com internal IM?

  2. mosites on May 30th, 2007 1:45 am

    Our internal IM and presence software was built from the ground up. Otherwise, we are using pidgin (gaim) to interface with external networks. Glad you’re excited to check it out!

  3. Brainplugg Channels » Communal RSS Reader Streamy Angel Funded on June 4th, 2007 1:57 pm

    [...] crowds you get personalized recommendations on other stories and publications. The startup tells VentureItch - “We’ve been received well, and have attracted angel investors including Driftwood [...]

  4. Bill Compton on June 4th, 2007 6:13 pm

    Hi Jim. Photos i received. Thanks

  5. Streamy, A New Digg, IM, Netvibes, Customized News Thingy on July 11th, 2007 2:41 am

    [...] Streamyyet, other than the screencast above, a TechCrunch Forums post and writeups from a couple of blogs. It’s a social news site, with customized pages for each user and the ability to add friends [...]

  6. Streamy.com, A Combination of Digg, Netvibes, Messenger, PageFlakes and more on July 11th, 2007 6:21 am

    [...] what Streamy can do, quoted directly from ventureitch.com. but to get a really good idea on Streamy, watch the Streamy video after [...]

  7. links for 2007-07-17 « Network(ed)News Bookmarks on July 16th, 2007 11:39 pm

    [...] Streamy.com - RSS That Works For Everyone | Venture Itch Centralized content aggregation and filtration powered by social networks, presented in dynamic and interesting ways. We engage our users with new tools to meet friends, communicate instantly, read and share stories, and find interesting content. (tags: interview rss startup webdesign streamy VentureItch news aggregation collectivewisdom) [...]

Leave a Reply