Goodsie Blog: New Feature: Store Embeds
A smart/super-appealing move from Goodsie, esp. for you Tumblring/fashionistic purveyors of handmade or vintage goods.
Today we are pleased to release an embed system for Goodsie which makes it easy to integrate a Goodsie storefront into almost any external site, like a Tumblr blog or Wordpress site!
Embed dimensions, product sizes, colors and backgrounds can all be customized to ensure a seamless fit and…
3 Things.
1) If you read this, and weren’t previously a subscriber to my Best in Beta newsletter, subscribe now! The newsletter is a periodic email highlighting new tech startups and web apps that are in beta testing. If you are a subscriber, you should know that I changed the name to the BetaList so that you don’t get confused when that name is in the subject line instead of Best in Beta. Why the change? In short, it made sense. Plus, the newsletter that is the word I chose for the newsletter sign-up URL … about a year ago.
2) Consider signing up for my second newsletter - DealList. It is a weekly list of notable acquisitions in the tech/startup space. Often times, acquisition announcements really only hit the press in the form of a standard press release. So, instead of wasting your time reading a PR firm’s form letter - just crank up your email on Saturday morning and you’ll know all about the acquisitions that mattered in around 90 seconds.
3) Consider signing up for my third newsletter (too ambitious?) - FundList. It’s like DealList, but it lists notable startups/early stage tech companies that have received funding in the past week - as well as any investors involved in the round.
In short, you give me 3 minutes of your Saturday morning - I’ll give you the world. No. I’ll just give you some information that you want to know. Otherwise you would not have signed up in the first place.
XOXO.
Discovering Art(.sy)
One of the driving forces of the internet has been discovery. Yahoo is credited with being one of the primary discovery engines of the web while it was still in diapers. Discovery evolved from a curated page of links, to search with the invention of the search engine. As the internet evolved into it’s interactive age, discover occurred on a social level, and in the current age of handled computing (read: smartphones) discovery is happening in a much more personalized way.
Joining the society of other discovery engines, is Art.sy - the much anticipated NY-based startup founded by Carter Cleveland just over 3 years ago. Led be Cleveland, funded by the likes of Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, Charlie Cheever, and Peter Thiel, and advised by global art and discovery leaders Larry Gagosian (Gagosian Galleries) and Joe Kennedy (Pandora), Art.sy, on paper, seems well positioned for success.1
The art discovery startup debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in the Spring of 2010, showcasing as a sort of new art marketplace. Art.sy has since shifted their focus, and is now, at it’s core, an art database displaying its contents in a simply searchable gallery.
In much the same way that Pandora analyzes song structure, patterns, and influences to create the music genome, Art.sy analyzes works of art for hundreds of different characteristics in an effort to create the art genome.
After waiting for over a year, I finally received my Art.sy invite today. In the case that you have not received your invite yet or have not requested one, I took the liberty to post a few screen grabs below.
Here, we have the home page showing you works currently on display.
Use the search box at the top of the site, or use the characteristics in the footer to find art based on any number of characteristics/specific criteria.
Next, we have the individual piece page. View the work in detail, find out whether it is for sale (at which point, Art.sy will put you in communication with the artist/gallery). You can also save the work to your own digital collection (like a Pinterest for the sophisticate). Finally, you can follow the artist to be alerted when new work is uploaded for viewing/sale.
Art.sy is sort of amalgamation of Pinterest and Pandora for the art sophisticate. It brings together the best of these applications, and introduces the tradition of art museums, galleries, and brokerages to create a unique, elegant, and obviously artistic experience.
Kickstarter in 2011.
See previous commentary and statistics.
Of note: It would seem that, with products like Twine, PadPivot, etc. getting so much media attention and widespread praise for the amount of cheddar they were able to raise for their respective projects, the Design category would be the one that grabbed the most cashflow. While it did grab the title for most popular rewards, it was actually the Film ($32mm) and Music ($19mm) categories that netted the most $$$$ for the projects.
Fistbumps and Sidehugs.
(via buzzfeed)
Pinterest is Blowing Up.
Traffic is up 40x in the past 6 months, according to the latest data from Experian. That’s cool for Pinterest, but I’m not sure I completely get the Pinterest hype.
Maybe it’s because I have been using Fancy for quite a while now. I have to give Pinterest some credit though. They identified one of the things people loved about Tumblr, that is collecting images/inspiration, and did a better job of making it categorical and findable. The “interest wall” is quickly becoming a “must have” for many other social startups. Lockerz and Quora both recently announced the ability to “pin” photos or text to a personal categorized stream.
While I’m not into it personally, I do think that Pinterest, and the larger trend of categorizing interests and inspiration, will hold a prominent place in the future of media and distribution.
The top search terms of 2011 courtesy of Experian Hitwise. Do people just not know how to use the address bar? This blows my mind…
via tc
You could probably stand to be a little nicer on social media. Charity Swearbox fines you every time you use an obscenity in your Twitter feed, so that your dirty mouth can feed kids in Africa.
Charity Swearbox: Turning Twitter Profanity into Famine Relief
Following yesterday’s MetroChange feature, another smart/easy way to turn everyday action (and profanity) into dollars for charity.
New machines donate your leftover metrocard change to charity.
The idea of donating forgotten change to charity is as old as the money eating couch, yet I am continually impressed by how people are finding new sources of “lost money” to put to work for charities that need it.
via BetaBeat
…and we’re back.
I mean I’m back, with you.
I spent a minute or two thinking about deleting TheStartupist, and letting it fall off the face of the earth. And then I decided that I just like following the space too much.
So here’s the plan for the revamped TheStartupist: I’m going to play the part of dj, and spin stories that I find interesting, relevant, and important - along with a short take. Some reasoning below:
- Breaking news is covered. If TC, SAI, AllThingsD, et al have breaking news on lock. I don’t have the time, or the desire, to break news - so I’m not even going to pretend to try.
- There are two prevailing voices in the tech/startup space. Boring/Unopinionated and Inflammatory/Sensationalist. I miss the f*** off attitude of TC, I think Venturebeat, RWW, and the institutional tech press (AllThingsD) are boring and mostly unopinionated, I think TheNextWeb covers too much stuff that just doesn’t matter, and I think SAI is thin on news and hell-bent on raising the world’s collective blood pressure. I deeply enjoy reading SplatF and BetaBeat - a good balance of opinion, data, analysis, and the occasional long-form read.
I expect TheStartupist to function more as a way for me too bookmark and record my take on tech/startup news, than as a way for you fulfill your insatiable desire to waste time reading things on the internet. In any case, if you want to keep up with news that actually matters, startups that are actually building good, sustainable, (and cool) businesses, and save a little of your time by not reading most of the textual drivel (like this) then TheStartupist might be your new friend.
That is all. Hopefully no future post will ever be this long again. Bye.
