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Useful and Interesting Sites Reviewed

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Helping Cool Projects Get Off The Ground

I’ve mentioned “crowdfunding” in the past. Fundit.ie is another Irish run crowdfunding initiative with a firm focus on the creative arts ie. film, music, design etc.,

Fund it is a new all-island crowdfunding website for Ireland’s creative projects, giving everyone the power to help good ideas happen.

Fund it is designed to support greater individual giving to the creative sector; an area that up until now has been under-utilised. The approach serves to strengthen the bond between a creator and their audience which offers the potential for wider-ranging, long-term relationships.

Fund it is an initiative created by Business to Arts.

It is funded under the New Stream programme, supported by Bank of America Merrill Lynch,     The Arthur Guinness Fund and via the support of a technology grant from the Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht.

Further support was also received from the Vodafone Ireland World of Difference programme and the British Council Ireland.

Business to Arts is a not-for-profit organisation working to support resilience and transformation in the cultural sector through research, innovation and partnership.

I just funded a project involving an Irish musician I’ve liked for years – very cool!

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Butch Bakery – Manly Cupcakes

Someone sent me the link to Butch Bakery this morning and I simply had to give them a mention.

What is it?

They’re a bakery in New York

What makes them special?

Their product. Sure they’re just selling “cup cakes”, but they’ve managed to take a simple product and give it a new and interesting twist and that’s what caught my attention

The graphical style and other elements on the site all reenforce the concept they’re driving – making cupcakes more appealing to boys .. more macho basically

I love it!

Go play with their site

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Outvesting – Supporting Business Development

One of the problems that startups have is getting funds.

So a few people came up with the idea of “outvesting“, which they describe as:

“The act of committing money to a business while expecting to get nothing in return, other than the satisfaction of giving a leg up to Irish entrepreneurs.”

outvesting screenshot

The idea is pretty simple – pledging €50 each towards startups. €50 isn’t much, but when you multiply it by 40, 50 or 100 it becomes a “nice chunk of cash”.

Further details on the site

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IGOPeople Putting A Slightly Different Spin On Social Networks

igopeople logo

I’m more than a little jaded by the plethora of “social” sites and services that have been springing up over the last couple of years.

Do we really need another one?

What can site X offer that isn’t already available via sites A, B or C?

That was my state of mind when I first heard about IGO people.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t want to signup and I couldn’t see any benefit in having “yet another bloody login”.

However a good friend asked me to give it a try, so I did.

IGO People is a slightly different concept:

I – individuals
G – groups
O – organisations

And the entire site is structured around these three types of user (admittedly there is an overlap…)

I grabbed a quick screenshot of the homepage a few minutes ago:
igo people main pageIt’s a nice way to interact and discuss organisations (companies etc.,) groups and individuals. What makes it a small bit different is that a lot of the content isn’t behind a “wall” (unlike so many of the social network sites)

It’s still in beta and they are adding new features, but it could become a very useful platform for companies and their clients who seek a medium to interact. While facebook has its “groups” and “pages” the IGO platform would appear to be more open and flexible and hopefully will remain less cluttered (ie. no annoying apps )

One to watch!

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Louder Voice Reviews

loudervoice logo

People buy goods and services based on recommendations from other people. You can advertise to your heart’s content, but other people’s recommendations make all the difference.

LouderVoice, which is Irish by the way, allows people to share their reviews of products, services, books, films, etc., etc. very easily. You can either post your review directly on their website or interact with them using a range of other methods, such as SMS or “tags” on your blog or twitter.

While the service always struck me as being “cool” and all that I couldn’t see how they were going to make any money out of it. However they have since unveiled their business solutions which do have a proper revenue stream.

Their new business service allows business owners to easily collect reviews and testimonials from their customers (one company is encourages customers to post reviews by putting stuff on the bottles they sell!)

It’s a really nice idea and hopefully the business side of it will prove successful.

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