Hot Captcha is a super simple site that provides an alternative to the annoying “please type the following characters that humans can’t read so for SURE computers won’t be able to” boxes. Rather than some mangled text, they’ve used the Hot or Not API to bring up 9 images of people.
You get the three that ARE hot… you pass and your submission can go through. Don’t get all three you must be a bot!
Okay loyal readers, friends, family, bloggers and Google searchers, Zigtag needs your help!
You’ve been reading this blog for months an not even clicked on an ad. Well I have something even better for you to click on!
Zigtag auditioned for a TV show last week called the Dragons Den. The CBC Canada show is based on the BBC version by the same name (and kicks ASS on the US edition American Inventor). In the show companies present a 10 minute pitch to the Dragons (5 angel/venture investors) and then negotiate live with the Dragons for their investment. Compress the entire process of pitching and negotiating into a single show – that’s my idea of efficient investing.
Let’s show them the power of the blogosphere. I need you to go vote and ideally spread the word to your friends, family and fellow blog readers. I need massive grassroots campaign to let the TV show producers know that cool Canadian software companies need a shot.
I’m sure there will be tons of cool widgets on the show, but getting a software company on TV won’t be quite as easy. Software isn’t nearly as visual as the latest solar beer chiller that keeps your beer cold in the sun (no that’s not on the show but you can steal the idea if you want to).
With enough votes and comments from people expressing they need a better way to search, save and share information, they won’t be able to deny me.
So go vote if you’re really excited about Zigtag, feel free to add some comments in the post expressing why the you need what Zigtag is offering.
As a bonus for your clickage, this is the first public information (other than our new 30 second ad.) on what Zigtag is up to. Go get a sneak peek into what Zigtag is going to be all about.
Another announcement I’ve been meaning to make is I’ve taken the leap and am now focusing full time on Zigtag as of July 1st. Prior to that I was working part time for the last company I created. Giving up a nice income stream is a small price to pay for the ability to put 100% focus on Zigtag.
We’re in the process of arranging a small angel round of financing (of which we’ve had our first piece close already. YAY!). The Dragon’s Den opportunity is not only a source of investment, but also an opportunity to get national TV exposure for Zigtag and it looks like it would be a ton of fun!
As a further update, Zigtag is currently in early alpha and in use by a select handful of adventurous users. We’ve got a few months of development remaining to get the right feature set in place that makes it easy for users to search, save and share their information. If you haven’t yet signed up to be one of the first users, please goto Zigtag and sign up now.
Scroll all the way to the bottom of that post for the voting box.
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Podcasts are hot and getting hotter. But advertising on podcasts is just getting started. One reason? Lack of content. That’s right it’s a chicken and egg problem.
Well Zigtag is giving your a free chicken right now! (Or is it an egg?)
Here is a 30 second advertisement for Zigtag. Add it to your podcast where you think an ad would be a great sell. Sure I’m not a paying advertiser… but your listeners won’t know it. They’ll hear the ad and realize they too should be advertising but actually should pay you some money.
It will be a great way to start advertising on your podcast, and it would be a great service for Zigtag as well. It’s hard to sell ads if you don’t have any ads already, so I’d love to be your first ad just to get the ball rolling!
You can download it from http://web2.0central.com/zigtag30.mp3 and add it you your podcast.
This idea was inspired by Kevin Burton’s Adsense angel funding idea where he asked bloggers to add his Adsense ID to some or all of their advertisements as a way of community funding for TailRank.
I’m not quite as smart as Kevin as his concept actually generated some income, but if anyone takes me up on this, hopefully a few more people come sign up at Zigtag and maybe you even get a real paying advertiser.
So, if you decide to add this add to your podcast, comment on this post and I’ll keep a running list of anyone who decides to show us support.
Reg
P.S. This was my first cut at creating a podcast ad using Garageband. I think it’s okay but love any feedback on the content or presentation. Blast away!
Along with fellow Canadian Sean Wise, we’ve started a campaign to help the world better realize the global technology leader that Canada is.
We are calling on all members of the Canadian Technology community (VCs, Start-ups, bloggers, NFPs and entrepreneurs) to rise up and join together in celebrating technology and innovation in the Great White North.
To assist with this, I’ve joined with Sean Wise in creating a webring for what we have dubbed the CANADIAN TECH MOB. Please join us by registering your websites and blogs on www.CanadianTechMob.com, join the webring and add the logo to your sites. Together let’s represent our home: true, strong and free!
Long live Canada! Long live the Canadian Tech Mob!!!
As a part of the Mob, it’s your duty to spread the word… post this on your blogs and encourage all your Canadian friends to participate.
If you’re a Canadian company in the Web 2.0 space, email me at canada@web2.0central.com and I’ll jump you up in the queue of companies to profile.
The crew at Cambrian House are up to some wicked innovation. I caught their site from their ad on Techcrunch and I’m super impressed.
Cambrian House, a fellow Canadian Company based out of Calgary, encourages people to submit ideas which they will use the community to filter. The ones the community likes will be passed onto the development phase where a community of developers will build it. Finally they’ll throw the business out to market and then split the profits among all contributors based on the value they add in the process.
They call the process crowdsourcing and are are focused on web based applications that can be built in 6 weeks or less.
There are a bunch of ideas submitted already and they are pitted head to head in a voting to gauge which ideas the community likes. The development side I’ll assume is awaiting the effects of the voting to come into play. I’m anxious to see how the development process comes into play.
Their website is very engaging and informative and if they put the same effort into marketing the ideas that come from this, I think this could really work. From their guess the weight of their goat mascot contest to sending 1,000 pizzas to the Googleplex… they’re marketing certainly doesn’t fit in a tight little box.
As a guy with more ideas than time, I think this thing could really work.
Web 2.0 Central profiles companies and startups building web based applications using technologies like Ajax, Ruby on Rails, Flash, RSS, Open API's and assorted web based application development tools.
Hot Captcha - Have fun proving you’re human!
