I attended an interesting lunchtime presentation today. The Creative Coast Initiative (part of Savannah Economic Development Authority), in conjunction with Savannah social media startup Balaya, conducted a blogger focus group in SEDA’s expansive conference room.
First, we dined on Sweet Leaf BBQ, then we heard Ian Bramson, Balaya’s President, explain his firm’s flagship product, tick-it.
tick-it is “a very thin client” that runs on one’s desktop. It delivers clickable headlines from MSM sites, blogs or from private groups set up by a user. And it does so in a ticker tape fashion (think CNBC). It’s kind of like email, except it’s meant for groups. It’s also like instant messaging, but you needn’t be continually present to take part in the group dynamic, since the conversations are all archived for easy access.
The product is in beta at the present time. If you use a PC, you can download the applet and take it for a spin.
Bramson and his team are intent on executing a successful blogger outreach program. They asked to hear from the group, and people seemed receptive. One thing I’m certainly receptive to is having our content appear in the tick-it stream. Once this functionality is available, other tick-it users will be able to choose to add AdPulp’s content to their desktop. So, tick-it is also like RSS, but one needn’t go to a site to fetch headlines, the headers simply move by in a right-to-left fashion.
tick-it is ad-supported. There’s a little banner at the far right of the applet. Balaya intends to share revenue with content providers. Bramson asked if we were receptive to that idea and I said, “Everyone loves money.”
I think any company that elegantly solves information overload problems has a good chance of catching on.
