Engagio Followup

Back in early December 2011, I wrote a blog post about Engagio, a new web service launched by our very own William Mougayar. For those who didn't read that post, Engagio is a service that aggregates your comment activity across many of the major social platforms and gives you a gmail style dashboard to see them and reply to them.

A lot has happened in the past 45 days since that post and I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on this project.

First, and most importantly, Engagio is now open to everyone. Every few days, I'd send an email to William saying "you have to open it up". And he'd reply, "we can't scale it yet". Now they think they can scale it, so it's open to everyone. If you didn't or couldn't check it out back then, you can now.

There are a bunch of new features, large and small. Most of them are pretty useful. A good example of that is social profiles. Here's Fake Grimlock's social profile, for example.

There is even a "fred wilson feature." At Disqus, the "fred wilson feature" was the ability to get an email for every comment and the ability to reply to the email and post it to the comment thread. At Engagio, the "fred wilson feature" is the ability to "mute a site." I get so many comments on AVC that my Engagio inbox is filled with them and I see nothing else. When I mute AVC, I see all my other commenting activity on the web, at Twitter, at Foursquare, at other blogs. This single feature has made Engagio way more useful to me. To "mute a site", you go to the Sites page via the left nav section, and click on the icon next to the site name.

Finally a disclosure. Engagio did a small seed round to given them runway to execute the "build the user base" stage of the business. My wife and I made a small angel investment in this round. I've been encouraging William to do this project since he first mentioned it to me in the fall. It seemed only right to encourage with both words and capital.

Please let William and me know what you think of the progress Engagio has made since it launched 45 days ago in the comments.

#Web/Tech#Weblogs

Comments (Archived):

  1. William Mougayar

    Thanks Fred…And we bought the domain Engagio.com, aided by our very own LE at Domain Registry. That transaction has its own story. Full product update here on our bloghttp://engagio.tumblr.com/p…

    1. Dave Pinsen

      Congratulations, William.

    2. fredwilson

      i love that LE helped you with the domain. in some ways engagio was built in collaboration with the AVC community

      1. William Mougayar

        …in more than one way. Also counting Arnold as an advisor (and not on wine issues). – posted via Engagio

        1. JamesHRH

          An AVC startup – nicely played William!

          1. Donna Brewington White

            Now for an AVC crowdfund.Could happen.

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            KICKSTARTER TO RAISE MONEYS FOR MOBILE VERSION?

      2. LE

        I think there is an opportunity for engagio to enable even more collaboration such as what happened here. For example there are various community members where someone might have something to offer to another member. But one of the parties doesn’t display contact info (for example I don’t..) And even for those that do, making contact isn’t frictionless. Engagio could add the ability to receive a private message from another user who has cleared a certain level of acceptability which could be set on an individual basis (in order to reduce spam). The contact wouldn’t be revealing an email. Only allowing a message to be received. They could also reply without revealing personal contact info (until they felt comfortable doing so). I’d have to give some thought as to how to involve people who are long time readers who don’t comment. They are valuable members but hard to qualify.

        1. fredwilson

          #featurerequest

          1. William Mougayar

            slight correction: #BIGfeaturerequest – posted via Engagio

        2. Donna Brewington White

          I was sharing similar thoughts with William. Like your idea better.

        3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          INTERESTING.ME, GRIMLOCK, SPEC OUT STARTUP PLAN RECENTLY THAT DO JUST THAT PART.DECIDE TO NOT DO, BECAUSE NOT INTERESTING ENOUGH.ADD TO ENGAGIO? THAT MAKE INTERESTING.

          1. William Mougayar

            I will ping you FG. Thanks. – posted via Engagio

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ME, GRIMLOCK, LOOK FORWARD TO PING.- posted via Engagio

    3. Andy Werner

      Hey William, love the service, will return to it after beta testing it a couple of weeks ago. Congrats on the open launch!p.s. withouth the www I get a DNS error for engagio.com, check it out.

      1. William Mougayar

        Yes we know about that one. We only got the domain transferred on the week-end, so it’s a redirect for now on http://www.engagio.com but we’ll integrate completely later. Thanks. – posted via Engagio

    4. Krgruder

      Hi WilliamDid LE assist in purchasing the domain name from someone who owned it?

      1. William Mougayar

        @domainregistry:disqus LE, you want to tell the story? 

        1. LE

          Sure. I wrote the following email to @wmoug:disqus the day after the  original post on AVC appeared:Hi William,Good luck with engag.ioAs part of my never ending research into the domain business I checked to see the asking price of engagio.com noting of course that you don’t own it but should obviously.The owners just replied that they will take **** for the name.To me that’s a no brainer. You might be able to get it for less of course but then the longer you wait, well, they might do a web search and see the AVC post. And then the price would increase.You should buy the name.If you are interested I will forward  to you the reply I received from the seller so you can purchase the name.Or if you want I can make a counter offer to see if they will accept less (which sometimes runs a risk..) After that William and I exchanged several emails relating to strategy. Part of the strategy was to offer less for a reason other than saving money. If someone gives you a price on a domain and you accept right away some sellers will feel that they left money on the table and also smell something is fishy (and then do some further research). So it’s almost a requirement to attempt to negotiate a lower price. Or make some demand like “ok, but only if….” (where “if” can be something trivial …)William got the name for an unbelievable price.  The seller was a “domainer” and they clearly didn’t do a web search or they would have never released the domain as cheaply as they did (up to William to mention the price if he wants).  I don’t remember exactly what I said when I contacted the seller but I did contact them as “me” someone in the domain business with a complete identity. There were various reasons *for this particular domain* for doing this which I can’t get into now.  How you approach someone varies. Many times you can end up overpaying for a domain depending on how  you make contact with a seller.  A good seller can always sniff out a situation and try to extract the most they can from a buyer. It’s pattern matching.  As a infrequent buyer it’s hard to avoid setting off the alarm since you don’t know what the seller is watching for.   I could write a book on all the factors and nuance involved.Luckily, for William in this case the seller didn’t even do a basic search.

          1. Krgruder

            Wow, thanks LE. Do you charge extra for domain negotiation or do you include it, when needed, with your domain registration fee? I’ve been thinking about a domain…. 🙂

          2. LE

            Well we definitely do give advice to customers whenever we can (one of the advantages of dealing with us) but the amount of time we can spend is somewhat limited.  For a typical domain acquisition that’s normally done on a paid basis.  That said I have definitely helped people with advice free of charge depending on the situation. I’ve helped  one person unknowns and I helped author Malcolm Gladwell secure his name (I managed to get the owner to give it up at no charge to Malcolm.) So you can feel free to write to me at startupname at gmail.com and tell me the circumstance and I’ll give you my thoughts on how you should proceed or even if I agree on the name you are interested in.

          3. fredwilson

            inside baseball! so good

          4. Mark Essel

            Ha, awesome advice. Great on you and William for listening to your advice.

          5. William Mougayar

            And behind the scenes Fred whispered in my ear “buy it”. – posted via Engagio

    5. kidmercury

      this is a really great product — congrats and well done

      1. William Mougayar

        Thanks Kid. I hope to meet you one day when I’m in NYC.

      2. kidmercury

        testing reply via engagio. – posted via Engagio

    6. Mark Essel

      Any chance of a tech post on how you plan to scale up efficiently?I had understood the early version polled, is that still the case?ps, couldn’t like disqus comments via engag.io. That’s hurting my usage.

      1. William Mougayar

        I know we left the Like for later. It’s a bit of pain to do…Hmm…you and I can talk. I don’t want to reveal too much here, as it’s getting into our proprietary know how. I will say there are other methods in play.:)- posted via Engagio

    7. kidmercury

      i am probably in the minority here, but if there was a way where i could integrate engagio with google reader that would be huge. for instance, if i got fred’s blog and other blogs i subscribe to in engagio, and could do all my commenting from here, i would totally do that and you would get all my attention. anyway, just wanted to share that thought. – posted via Engagio

  2. Maneesh

    “Hold that thought!We’re currently upgrading Engagio to be better, faster, smarter, and snazzier.Check back in a bit to see what’s new!The Engagio Team”

    1. BartG

      The AVC community is quick! We pushed a quick enhancement and are now up.

    2. fredwilson

      you couldn’t get in?

    3. William Mougayar

      Re-hold that thought. We pushed a tiny fix that did that for 1 min. Pls try again.

    4. William Mougayar

      If you are a Facebook user (and we want lots of them), note that you will see in your Inbox replies from a) your FB posts, b) Facebook comments, c) photos posts, d) links you share.And feel free to Recommend Us and Share Us on FB using the social buttons in the margin of your Inbox.

  3. Rohan

    ‘Posted via Engagio’  — the new equivalent of ‘Sent from my …’ for comments? And hopefully..’Posted via Engagio on my iPhone/Android’ coming soon.. Good going William! Congrats on the seed investment! 🙂 

    1. William Mougayar

      Web app is definitely in the plans. Thanks Rohan.

  4. John Best

    Will sign up and feed back. Congrats William.

    1. John Best

      That’s me integrated.- posted via Engagio

  5. Dudu Mimran

    Looks very interesting, I just signed up. From a first glance it seems to be contacts oriented which makes sense from a social aggregation perspective but I think there is an additional hidden value here which is topic aggregation. It could be nice to see the topics I am/was engaged in and to digg into them from a single tool without going to each specific website. These topics can be a great basis for enhancing personal content discovery.Good luck!Dudu 

    1. Dudu Mimran

      One more thought is that it can be a place to control your notifications centrally for comments, which is good for me.

    2. William Mougayar

      You are reading our minds. Can you wait another 45 days 🙂 ?Remember, our heritage & know how is Eqentia, a custom topic aggregator. In the meantime, if you hover on any Sites name, it will reveal the latest posts titles & you can follow the links that way, so it’s a small step toward content discovery.

      1. Dudu Mimran

        First, good luck, it looks good!Another thought is an enterprise account which monitors outbound impact of employees level of involvement in the community and inbound for real buzz and not just content scrapping and searching topic wise. From a corporate perspective the anchor of their employees can be a true filter for the social face of the company. I know it might be a big brother like direction, which some may not like, but it does not have to be this way. Anyway, a good way to make money, perhaps:)

        1. Dudu Mimran

          By the way, did not see your reply yet on my engageio inbox:)UPDATE: I have commented here with my twitter account and it is used just for identification so I guess that’s the reason.

          1. William Mougayar

            10 min delay for seeing replies back to you, but immediate when you reply from Engagio. I’m replying to you from my Inbox. – posted via Engagio

          2. William Mougayar

            You need to connect your Disqus account. Go to Account page & do that please?- posted via Engagio

          3. Dudu Mimran

            Just did and replying from my inbox- posted via Engagio

          4. William Mougayar

            Mazel Tov! – posted via Engagio

  6. RichardF

    I like the engagio profiles and I like the address book functionality.  I can see that linking to your engagio profile in Disqus rather than Twitter would add more value.I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t posted anything via engagio apart from when I first joined up.  I like to post comments and replies at the site I’m on.  It’s the same with Twitter.Having said that I’m not a huge social media user, I consume more than I post.Congratulations William, having the financial backing and more importantly the belief in what you are doing from the Wilsons is an achievement indeed.

  7. Roger Ellman

    Like the design, layout and dashboard a lot so far (on first brief return today, since signing up).New to monitoring the world interfacing with me and vice versa – so need time to see how much I gravitate to the site and become fluent in its use.The prospect is appealing!Thanks and best wishesRoger 

  8. JLM

    Congratulations!Stronger than an acre of garlic in West Texas.That’s strong.Well played!

    1. William Mougayar

      I love that analogy. I’m coming down to Austin just to see these garlic fields… And to have my face licked by your Labrador in the morning. That’s 2 strong reasons. The third is SXSW. You’re the 4th 🙂

  9. awaldstein

    Congrats William (and thanks Fred for the support!).Exciting stuff.A great story of a partial pivot with strings in my opinion. William has curation and aggregation in his DNA and this channels it in a connecting and network and social direction. A great promise that solves a problem.My sense is that we are looking at the early kernel of what will become an individual’s lens into a connected intersection of engaged users. This will get to a point when these elements mesh and connect the commenter out across the web to reconnect with expanded conversations of interest.I like it. I use it. It’s useful for me today.One nit William. I’ve never liked ‘moot’ as a term. I’d rather act to get something rather than act to hide something so others show up. Words matter.

    1. fredwilson

      words matterdamn straight they domore than almost anything else in life

      1. awaldstein

        ‘words matterdamn straight they do’I’ll wear that t-shirt to the gym!

        1. JimHirshfield

          Because abs and pecs matter?

          1. awaldstein

            Because core and fitness matters!And the words to describe them of course;)

          2. JimHirshfield

            Indeed. 🙂

          3. Anne Libby

            And green drinks.

        2. ShanaC

          submit it to a t-shirt site and see what happens.

  10. John Revay

    Hi William,As I recently tweeted to you –  I love Engagio – it is one of my favorite apps – I click to it several times a day, Key for me is seeing all of the activity from a thread, vs just getting the Disqus email when the initial top level reply comes in.Also it is just much more easier for me to respond to a comment on Engagio, than going to the Disqus comment thread and responding – I like the “sent by Engagio” signature as well – very proud to include that on my replies.Things I would like to see1. When reply on Engagio – the txt box to respond is too short – if you want to type a longer reply – you end up doing a lot of scrolling – especially when rereading prior to posting. – I have submitted this on your site.2. Blog aggregation dash board – I am a fairly new to following AVC and some of the similar sites (some which are shown on Grimlock’s profile).  I need a central place where I can monitor new subject posts.  I started using the Google reader…for some reason, I tend not to use it.3. Social thought – Check that – I was going to type up a feature Fred just described above re: seeing someone profile and what other blogs they read/follow/comment on. – I will check that out later tonight.

    1. William Mougayar

      Thanks John & you’ve been a great supporter.1- depending on the browser you use, you can stretch that box by grabbing its lower right corner. I think chrome & safari allow that. 2- hovering on sites & revealing the actual posts is one tiny step in that direction. as I said in an earlier comment, engagio’s heritage is content aggregation, so stay tuned. 3- yes. we think people will go where others have commented. it’s good for following your friends, but even more valuable for learning about strangers you don’t know well yet, so you would in essence meet them in the social sphere across several touch points & we facilitate that. It’s like you show-up at several parties & the run into the same person for the 4th time, then you’ll start to engage with them.

  11. JimHirshfield

    Love seeing product dev, entrepreneurship, played out in real time.Congrats William!I’ll check it out when I get to my desk.

    1. fredwilson

      yeahme toodoing it in public helps everyone get better

      1. JimHirshfield

        A variation on Codecademy.Call in Entrecademy.

  12. arjunram

    Have a lot of respect for VCs that put their money where their mouth is. Kudos to you!

  13. LIAD

    The value is there. Just need to find a way of getting it into people’s workflow. 

    1. William Mougayar

      You think Mobile should help?Also, next week, we’ll have a regular email you’ll receive with action items to bring you back.

      1. Brandon Burns

        incorporating into workflow ideas:1. if engagio were a catch-all inbox, including email, i’d never have to check anything else. just need a way to either hide email or switch modes so email doesn’t take over. 2. if i could add/bookmark destinations to engagio — like AVC — i could go straight to engago instead of the normal url. right now i’m typing into the discuss widget on avc.com because i come to this URL to read this blog. if i could go to engagio to read AVC, and my other regular blogs, and comment through engagio, that would put it in my regular flow. but then the property owner, in this case fred, would potentially lose a user in his metrics for the day, so that needs to be navigated. don’t bite the hand that feeds you!

        1. William Mougayar

          Brandon, if you check the Sites folder, we automatically capture a bunch of popular sites for you, AVC being one of them. The Sites folder is where I go 2nd after the Inbox.

          1. Brandon Burns

            yeah, definitely a cool feature. kinda wish it felt more browsy/flipboard-y. also, right now i have to follow the link and leave my 1st comment via avc.com. while its great that i can follow the resulting thread on engagio, if i could start the whole process (and keep it) on engagio, the loop would be closed all within your platform, giving you control of the flow.- posted via Engagio

      2. LIAD

        Mobile could be a way of establishing a beachhead, but I see this primarily as a desktop tool.In regards the action items you mentioned:For me at least, commenting on the whole is a recreational activity, not an overtly commercial one. I would focus hard on not making the engagio experience feel like a chore, akin to hitting a packed email inbox. Unless of course your goal is to do for commenting what tweetdeck did for twitter and to cater mainly for power users.

        1. William Mougayar

          Great observation LIAD, and I agree. Responding to comments should be fun, and it is. I have gone to my Engagio Inbox to take a “break” from the chores of emails or daily tasks, because I see friends there and people that I don’t know but that respond to me. That’s rewarding. We have been asked many times to add Facebook pages and multiple brands under one account for a premium subscription (for business users and community managers), and we are considering that. Yes, with mobile, we’d have to strip it down to basic features probably, although we could do some smart things with push notifications. – posted via Engagio

          1. Otto

            Mobile would be very attractive, even if stripped down to basic features. As much as I like Disqus, the lack of a good mobile app limits my use of it. It would likely be the same with Engagio for me. Mobile and social seems like a natural fit, the two are fun when paired. Desktop computers and social feels like work, like you’re connected but still isolated.Engagio is a great idea William. I wish you success with it!

          2. Donna Brewington White

            “Mobile and social seems like a natural fit”Bingo, Otto.

          3. Otto

            I never really “got social media” until I went mobile. It’s enabled me to get going with it, but I have much catching up to do. Platforms with the best mobile app development and the ability to easily search on mobile apps, like Instagram, will do very well long term in my opinion.

          4. William Mougayar

            Thank you. Have you tried it on an iPad? It looks great. – posted via Engagio

          5. Otto

            The website looks great on iPad but I haven’t tried it yet. I’m going to, but I need to figure out how to integrate it with all of my anonymous characters and pseudonyms.

          6. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            MOBILE NOT STRIP DOWN.MOBILE FOCUS ON WHAT MATTER.

          7. William Mougayar

            True. I was thinking in web app terms. Mobile forces you to think about what matters. – posted via Engagio

      3. Donna Brewington White

        William — the reason I mentioned the CRM company in my email to you the other day was precisely because of the “action items” feature — it caused me to reengage with that particular tool — no pun intendedEdit: Actually, that was only one of the reasons — the other had to do with email and social integration — one stop shop effect — @brandon_burns:disqus ‘s comment below reminded me of this

      4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        YES.ME, GRIMLOCK, USE PATCHWORK OF BOXCAR, TWITTER, EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS FOR TRACK WHAT GOING ON DURING DAY.IF CAN DO WITH ENGAGIO ON PHONE, IMMEDIATELY BECOME MOST USEFUL TOOL OF ALL.ME THINK SHOULD HAVE BUILD FOR PHONE FIRST, DESKTOP LATER.IT NOT THAT HARD IF KNOW HOW.

        1. William Mougayar

          I like Boxcar. They have contacted me actually. If I only had 3 more programmers…- posted via Engagio

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            NEED MORE AWESOME PROGRAMMERS, NOT MORE PROGRAMMERS.

    2. fredwilson

      exactly!!!!

  14. Scott Barnett

    Fred, thanks for the nudge.  I had signed up for Beta and had the invite code, I just got busy and didn’t do it.  I signed up this morning and will check it out.William – one minor nit – setting up my profile – I had to click on Foursquare twice before it connected, and I still can’t get Google+ to connect – I’ve signed in, but it doesn’t seem to want to connect.  Any thoughts?

    1. William Mougayar

      Scott & others with Google+ issues,- we’re fixing that…G+ changed something related to tokens without notices and we’re reacting to it. It’s a typical problem when you’re managing multiple APIs, but honestly, the platforms don’t do a good job telling developers what has changed. Twitter was notorious for that.

  15. Tom Labus

    What about an extension for Chrome?I live off the Tweetdeck extension for it’s simplicity and control.

    1. William Mougayar

      With an extension or plugin, you lose touch with the end-user directly. Engagio is much more than that, and where we’re going we want to be your next Inbox. The fun one, the useful one, the one where you get the most value from quickly. I watch people stare at their Tweetdecks and I can’t tell if they are hypnotized or getting something done.

      1. Tom Labus

        The Tweetdeck flow is part of the attraction at times.  It’s an interesting diversion during the day.I need to re visit with your stuff.

  16. RV

    Cool.  I like it.  Good Luck.

  17. Richard

    I Apologise in advance for being an idea guy, but since Fred asked…A means to create priority circles to display conversations, where the innner circle is a su set of each successive outer circle. For example, Fred could create an inner circle with William but have me in some outer circle.A spell check and word count would be useful.The ability to cluster and collapse sites.

    1. William Mougayar

      Good ideas…thanksWe also listen to our User Voice feedback  http://engagio.uservoice.com

      1. fredwilson

        don’t complicate the UI

        1. William Mougayar

          I agree. – posted via Engagio

          1. Cynthia Schames

            If anything, simplify the UI drastically.  It’s cluttery, visually overwhelming and the folder-based structure is really old-fashioned to me. I’d much rather see a sleek graphical UI.  I know you’re looking for UX/UI help, and I’m not trying to hit you over the head, I’m just trying to give specific feedback.Also, I’d like to be able to archive–which would go a long way toward uncluttering the interface. Small quibble/question: within any interactions list, interactions are not actually displayed in sorted order.  For example, on top sites, mine default to the following order (# of comments): 6, 13, 5, 7, 75.  Last but not least: I REALLY want to be able to edit my own profile.  I won’t share Engag.io with my network until I am able to edit the profile info, because it has my contact info on it. 

          2. William Mougayar

            Cynthia- thanks & duly noted. 2 quick ones for you:- you can resort Sites by clicking on the column header & it will remember that order for your next visits. I order them by Newest Date. – you’ll be able to edit your profile next week. That feature is done & going thru testing now. Mind you, we pulled your profile info from one your publicly available networks. – posted via Engagio

          3. Cynthia Schames

            Thanks so much @William Mougayar! I suspect my profile data was pulled from LinkedIn, which I have since edited, but it has not refreshed in Engag.io. I disconnected LinkedIn, then re-connected it, but the info didn’t change.Looking forward to seeing the product evolve, especially once it’s rebuilt with UI/UX as priority.

          4. William Mougayar

            We’re going to allow you to edit your profile and links…probably tomorrow morning 🙂 Most people haven’t updated their LinkedIn profiles for ages, and we had the same feedback from others that were seeing things that were there but needed updating. – posted via Engagio

          5. Cynthia Schames

            @william mougayar Hooray! 😉

          6. William Mougayar

            You’re speaking like the Grimlock? – posted via Engagio

          7. Cynthia Schames

            Ha, I could only hope to attain a small bit of the Dino’s wisdom in my lifetime. But yeah, “hooray” is contagious.

          8. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            HER CONTRACT BAD CASE OF BE AWESOME.

          9. Cynthia Schames

            Symptoms include be more awesome. Kick ass. Be on fire. Startup you.And also, metallic skin.

  18. jason wright

    I haven’t yet signed up with William’s invite…so I haven’t yet used it. I will though. Ever onward, ever upward William.

  19. Anne Libby

    Good for you!  I love it, and just went over to the engag.io feedback page and voted up a request to be able to connect FB pages…(And it has been really fun being an early user and watching it develop.   Thanks!)

  20. Paul Sullivan

    Great stuff William!  It will be interesting to see where Engagio finds its home on my ribbon of open Chrome tabs – prioritized left to right.

    1. William Mougayar

      Keep it open. I do. Take a break and use it. You will love it.

      1. Paul Sullivan

        Yes, it is staying open and quickly moving its way up on the priority list. One measure of Engagio’s success could be the number of mail notification cancellations that result. My inbox thanks you!!!- posted via Engagio

        1. William Mougayar

          Yes!!! – posted via Engagio

  21. maxshelley

    Out of interest, did either of you ever try out Threadsy which recently (Nov 11) closed? It was doing very well with the integrated inbox idea (theirs began in 08 so was more email-orientated than this is).They closed due to financial reasons, but I’d used the service a little and found it pretty good.Their landing page is still up at http://threadsy.com

    1. kenberger

      exactly what I immediately thought of. They crested, then tanked.William rocks and I’ve no doubt his mileage will differ!!

      1. maxshelley

        It’s interesting that they still have the ‘Beta’ tag on their homepage even after all these years (I don’t think that’s in a Google ‘always in beta’ style, it just didn’t always feel finished).

      2. William Mougayar

        Thanks Ken…we’re optimistically cautious and cautiously optimistic.

        1. kenberger

          just don’t get caustically optionistic.

          1. William Mougayar

            Lol.Caustically or Acoustically?- posted via Engagio

    2. William Mougayar

      I did follow them. We will never be your social media firehose intake. They were trying to swallow everything in, and I know what it takes from an infrastructure point of view to do that. Other than that observation, i don’t have any inside knowledge as to the reasons for their closing.

  22. testtest

    have you thought about buying some traffic and pointing it to this page. pre-sells normally work wellwe can talk branding all day, but in the world of online I like sigh-ups

    1. Richard

      Can u elaborate? Thanks.

      1. testtest

        which part, richard?

      2. testtest

        on the traffic:to be simplistic about it, to get a conversion to a sign-up there’s two aspects, how many people see what you offer, and your conversion rate. these are two sides of the same coin.on pre-selling:this is getting a recommendation before for a product before hitting the sales page/sign-up page. affiliates do this by creating reviews of products. it sells people on the product before they get to the product, hence “pre”this page is also great because there’s a story and it’s told by a reputable figure I.e. Fred. Riding off on back of reputation of a brand or person helps. this is ‘brand arbitrage’. on sign-upsi like sign-ups over brand because the web is fragmented. someone may only see your offering once. there are some that say brand doesn’t exist online. i disagree. in the early stages, though, it’s an inefficient way to build a user base. direct marketing is so powerful online, and measurable, it should be utilised. and anyone not using for a startup is leaving users on the table.i don’t think a direct link from google search is great for startups who are creating a new category. doing something like the above, or 101 other possible tactics, is more impactful.do online companies need marketing and sales? well, according to facebooks S-1 they spend more on marketing and sales than they do on engineering.google also spend a significant amount on traffic acquisition costs (TAC). $2.2 Billion a quarter!so, is marketing BS? hell no!not that i care either way. #justSaying

        1. JamesHRH

          chris – direct convo possible?

          1. testtest

            sure, jameschrishuntis gmail.com

        2. RichardF

          not only do I like this comment but I want to instapaper it for later.Now there’s a thought for you William Mougayar

  23. heuristocrat

    I took a quick peek and liked what I saw. I don’t know for sure if I/we are representative or not but we use hootsuite and these are features that should really be integrated there. They seem to have added quite a bit of functionality and may be going in this direction.In short I think we seem to have too many tools, most of which are fragmented. I like that this one seems to aggregate comments but when you are busy running a company (that isn’t about social networking) you only have so much time and so many tools you can incorporate. When I come up for air maybe I can take a deeper look but our real challenge is finding the time to leverage all these tools, networks and online touch points while still getting our core work done. Considering email, blogs/RSS, twitter, facebook, linkedin plus in our case Bloomberg, S&P Capital IQ, FactSet, SeekingAlpha, StockTwits which are just our external sites (we have as many internal) the time factor becomes big.My 2c.

    1. William Mougayar

      Kris, your use case is golden, i.e. you visit that Inbox 2-4 times per day and that’s it. You don’t have to go chasing original comments and sorting through dozens of email notifications or forgetting where you placed comments or started a conversation. It’s like ‘set it and forget’. I go place my comments where I want, then I retreat and check back my Inbox to see who replied and where the conversation is going in chunks of mini-threads, not as a firehose of 200 comments. Then, the bonus is knowing who is behind these comments, of course. COMMENTS ARE IMPLICIT LINKS ABOUT PEOPLE.

      1. ShanaC

        Discussions are implicit links about people.(It may be because I don’t see say facebook comments as comments)

  24. kenberger

    Hey Fred, some other folks are openly critical of the practice of making side bets outside of one’s venture firm, such as expressed in the below quote. What’s your perspective? I can’t help thinking of it like releasing solo records outside of the main band– usually benign and fine.”We invest through our fund or not at all. We prohibit all personal investing by our partners and employees in early-stage companies. This maximizes returns for our investors, and avoids signaling problems and potential conflicts in our portfolio companies. Surprisingly, many traditional VC funds permit this behavior.” From http://ffvc.com/about

    1. markslater

      at this stage its a priviledge to be a fred wilson LP. wo be he who tries to impose that restriction.

      1. kenberger

        true dat, my Beantown friend 😉

    2. LE

      “We prohibit all personal investing by our partners and employees in early-stage companies”But yet, at ffvc Michael Yavonditte is one of the five venture partners at ffvc and ffvc backed his firm – Hashable (so did USV):”Michael Yavonditte is Founder and CEO of Hashable, a New York-based startup backed by ff Venture Capital and a number of other leading VCs.”

    3. fredwilson

      great question. the gotham gal does all of our angel investments. and if she invests in something its not likely that it is in USV’s wheelhouse.in the past five years, i’ve done two of these. howard’s wallstrip and now william’s engagio. both were conceived of in some way on this blog.i don’t think of these as side bets

  25. Douglas Crets

    Are we getting closer to the death of email?I’d like to know from everyone here, “Where does email not work for you?”Take me back to the first time you went to the comments on AVC. What were you thinking before you went to comments? What made you comment? I’m very curious about the range of answers we might get.

    1. John Best

      Email is something I feel I have to do. Its a necessity to get things done.Commenting here (and elsewhere) is something I want to do because:a) I find the subject matter interestingb) I think I can offer insight (I’m making no claims as to the quality though 😉 )c) It’s an aspirational community – it’s full of smart, savvy tech business types. If I want to be considered one of those, I can learn and contribute as part of that journey.

      1. Douglas Crets

        Thanks for your answer. – posted via Engagio

    2. JamesHRH

      RedRook is right in my book – email is ‘of record’ (or off the social record – thanks @emilsotirov:disqus – it is a responsibility not an opportunity.Like FB, it is never going away.There is an old rule in product development that says ‘only in the rarest of cases does a new solution entirely remove a pre-existing product from the market’.Its true of typewriters (but not typing). It is still not true of faxing, amazingly.

      1. Douglas Crets

        have you looked into this Jobs to be Done theory, James? I think you would get it. – posted via Engagio

        1. JamesHRH

          No, but I am keen to be enlightened. Prof Christensen is very jobs based…..- posted via Engagio

    3. Donna Brewington White

      Why do you think we are getting closer to the death of email?Seems to me that it is alive and well.I’m thinking of this from a business perspective.  Not so much on a social level.

      1. Douglas Crets

        I base this on discussions with my circle of felllow community managers. Traditional pillars, or verticals, of business operation are already, in our collective view, suffering from a kind of erosion of quality or credibility within organizations. Top-down management protocols seem to go completely against a social mindset. I see a lot of people going social against their company’s wishes, because they now that having a social conversation can actually get more things done for their internal success. Email has less meaning over time in this model. Some companies that are getting it are taking away email aloogether and workign with a messaging, social media, and forum mindset. Face to face takes the place of some email chains. My theory is more anecdotal, but for instance, my emails are largely filled by disqus notifications and stuff like that. My conversations in social are more specific to next actions and current projects. – posted via Engagio

        1. JamesHRH

          stage of life is very important here Douglas. My inbox is filled with business, accountants, lawyers, children’s activities, travel arrangements, etc.It is the stuff that is ‘of record’ – needing to be heeded and usually requiring action.For me, my life responsibilities have grown to the point where my social life seems very small; consequently, my email inbox does not look like it is dying.- posted via Engagio

          1. Douglas Crets

            Maybe not stage of life, because my social accounts are filled with the very similar, from deputy prime ministers to lawyers, to cleaning services.- posted via Engagio

        2. Donna Brewington White

          It makes sense that you would have this impression based on interactions that are more socially oriented. My social interaction is about half and half social media vs. email. And while business is becoming more social there is still enough of it that is “strictly business” that email is a vital tool. Some of my clients and prospective clients — as well as prospective candidates — would prefer to be approached by email. And many of my clients over 50 or so are almost strictly email — even those who have become friends as well.Those of us actively engaged in social media and also who tend to hang around tech circles forget that many of the people influential in the business world have not yet become “social” and perhaps never will.- posted via Engagio

          1. Douglas Crets

            You have a very great point, actually. A series of points. I feel sometimes that I don’t know enough about how the other half” processes their business information. In fact, even with certain business contacts, there is an invisible cultural membrane here that seems to strip away the power of whatever solution I might be able to provide, simply due to the factors you very precisely lay out here. Thanks for that. I appreciate it. – posted via Engagio

          2. Douglas Crets

            I’ve also been reading a global digital influence report, and I wanted to highlight that the problem you are talking about is less prevalent in China, India and other emerging markets. china, for instance, has a much higher penetration of smartphones and tablets than the US. That uptick in growth shapes behavior and is a leading indicator of how these changes will spread globally. – posted via Engagio

          3. Donna Brewington White

            I think the operative word here is “emerging.” Creates a different radar and openness to innovation. Which is why I hope to be always emerging in some way or another. And, in response to your other comment, you are most welcome.- posted via Engagio

          4. Douglas Crets

            Where are you getting the number rankings that you are talking about in the other thread here? – posted via Engagio

          5. Donna Brewington White

            When you go to the “My Profile” page in Engagio, the URL will end with a number indicating the sequence in which you signed up.

  26. panterosa,

    Bravo William!I love engag.io! Has made my life much easier. I’d love to see it be quicker (it’s down to 10 minutes but I’d prefer it be less), and I’d like to see mobile.I have recommended to many friends. Especially the women are interested and more quickly engaging in it, perhaps with the constant back and forth of work and family.

    1. William Mougayar

      Thanks Panterosa for your support and viral help. We have both of your wishes on our mind too 🙂

      1. panterosa,

        William, now that it’s open I will tell many more people who would enjoy it!

      2. panterosa,

        Oh, another little feature popped to mind. I love the way my mac mail shows the number of unread mail and that number updates. Would be a great little feature, esp for mobile.

        1. William Mougayar

          That’s an easy one. It’s on the list definitely. – posted via Engagio

          1. panterosa,

            You think of everything, so you will succeed!!- posted via Engagio

      3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        BUILD RESPONSIVE?OR EMAIL GRIMLOCK. INTERESTED IN DISCUSS WHAT STACK USE.

        1. William Mougayar

          Definitely. was going to email you today to pick-up on your other points. Thanks! – posted via Engagio

  27. Robert Thuston

    Engagio makes sense, and the timing of it is right – as Fred mentions the fragmentation of social. Also, huge kudos to William for doing this thing – it puts urgency on all of the entrepreneurs in the community to step up our own game.  To have this done right in front of the AVC community has a “walk the walk” feel to it… and prideful of it.

    1. William Mougayar

      You hit the nail on the head Robert, in that it helps you manage the fragmentation. Aggregation tackles fragmentation.

  28. Jen Berrent

    I log into AVC through my Twitter account (not disqus).  Will Engagio pick up these conversations?  (I am signed up for engagio so if someone responds to this, it will be a test.)

    1. Tom Labus

      We shall see!!

      1. Jen Berrent

        thank you both – does not show up, which is not ideal for me!

        1. BartG

          Hi Jen,If you go to http://www.engag.io/account you should see the Disqus button. Are you saying you don’t see it?

          1. Jen Berrent

            In order to make comments on this blog I login using my twitter account – i don’t have a disqus account since i don’t really need one.  So i am making comments here logged in but they are not being captured by engagio.  That’s how i do almost everything – i have my own divide about when i use my twitter identity and when i use my facebook identity. 

          2. BartG

            Thanks Jen,We’ve talked about this use case and it’s something we’ll be looking at in the near future.Thanks for taking the time to let us know.- posted via Engagio

      2. William Mougayar

        The user has to Connect/Authenticate Disqus from Engagio on their Account page http://www.engag.io/accountWe don’t care how the user has originally signed-up on Disqus.

    2. Aaron Klein

      Here’s a test response for you. 🙂

    3. William Mougayar

      To see your comments via Disqus in Engagio, you have to Connect your Disqus in the Account page on Engagio. That will do it. We don’t care how you signed-up with Disqus. So go there http://www.engag.io/account and Connect/Authenticate your Disqus account and that’s it. They will start flowing and you will see this comment in 5-10 mins max, if not earlier.

  29. Aaron Klein

    Big congrats, William. I need to become a more active user but I’m incredibly excited for you and the potential of Engagio. Rock on!

    1. William Mougayar

      We’ll rope you in somehow…maybe an email nudge will do it…After the Inbox, the Sites folder is the most visited. I go there regularly to see where YOU, Fred and others are commenting and I go there and read and post comments there too. And I discover new and useful places and people. That’s a good use case for a daily dose of Engagio.

      1. Aaron Klein

        Good tips. I’m going to re-engage-io. 😉

        1. John Revay

          Aaron – i like the Re-engage-io

          1. Aaron Klein

            William is more than welcome to steal that for his reactivation emails :)- posted via Engagio

      2. Aaron Klein

        So here’s $0.02 and a feature I’d need to really make this work well for me…mute network.I deal with Twitter stuff here and there on my phone. I’d rather leave Twitter integrated with Engagio (it seemed like it would be helpful to have that context for contacts across multiple networks) but I don’t want tweets in my inbox. I’m having to double handle stuff.- posted via Engagio

        1. William Mougayar

          Good one…That’s possible and reasonably easy to do for Twitter. The Aaron Klein feature! – posted via Engagio

          1. Aaron Klein

            It really is a great product and it’s now earned a prominent place on my bookmark toolbar. 🙂

          2. William Mougayar

            Now you’re making it harder for me to turn down that new feature 🙂 – posted via Engagio

          3. fredwilson

            what’s the fake grimlock feature?

          4. William Mougayar

            Great question. It will have to be a significant/earth moving one, since he’s so demanding. – posted via Engagio

  30. Roger Chabra

    Great story unfolding here. The genesis of how this project came together is amazing and William & team are executing very well. The Engagio team have built a great initial product, have been iterating quickly and have a grand vision encompassing connections and content centered on comments. Bravo.

    1. William Mougayar

      Thanks Roger for your support. It is an unfolding story, definitely….

      1. Roger Chabra

        Excited for you.- posted via Engagio

  31. Peter G

    This is an interesting product, that could be used in a lot of ways, and makes nice use of Twitter’s Bootstrap. The folks at Assistly/Desk.com should be cautious.. Engagio’s approach to the social dashboard exceeds Assistly’s and it’s only a few steps away from serving a dual purpose of a personal social dashboard and a customer support center – that could be one way to monetize it..

  32. Avid everyday reader of AVC for over a year but this is my first comment! Although im in the UK and my 2.5yr old startup is green rather than tech, i find Fred and the community here interesting, insightful and inspirational on a daily basis.Just wanted to big up William as Engagio seems a great idea and of course Fred for putting his money where his mouth is, as we say over here! Having silently tracked you both for some time now it of course comes as no surprise, but is no less noteworthy for that fact.Mark_GB

    1. William Mougayar

      Much appreciated Mark. Thanks for your kind words.

    2. Donna Brewington White

      “putting his money where his mouth is”We use that saying in the U.S. too.  I like it a lot…and agree that it is an apt description for Fred.  I have often thought this.

    3. fredwilson

      please don’t make it your last!

      1. Mark_GB

        I won’t – brief engagement with William, the beautiful DBW, and now even your good self has moved what was already a great week for me into another stratosphere altogether! It goes without saying for most people on here i’m sure but what a community this is.. the unfolding live development of Engagio is yet another testament to that…

      2. LE

        I’m been curious why some people stay behind the scenes and never comment on this blog.  Not even occasionally.  And on this blog in particular.Which is much different from other places (I practically never comment elsewhere, where, say @donnawhite:disqus and @wmoug:disqus do.)I have some theories on this. Might be an idea to have a Fun Friday directed to all the people who follow the blog but don’t make comments such as Mark above “Avid everyday reader of AVC for over a year but this is my first comment! “Any information obtained would be a help to disqus and engagio and knowledge of social networks as well.

        1. fredwilson

          that’s a cool idea. i may try that

  33. Nick Grossman

    Congrats, @wmoug:disqus !  Hear hear for adding another piece to the mix that makes “distributed” work

  34. ShanaC

    I’m being not surpiised about the seed round.  Its very useful, I just wish it was furhter built out to be more Jive-ish

    1. laurie kalmanson

      jive is xlent — it’s like a personal wikipedia plus tumblr/twitter/basecamp; i used it at an agency i worked with.

  35. laurie kalmanson

    congratulations! #aggregate_everythingthe universal inbox is extremely powerfulwishlist– streams show in a dashboard/grid, vertically lined up: collapse expand– streams show in a mosaic, like pinterest; bigger is more activity = visual cue

  36. Ray

    @jameshrh:disqus … my roomate’s aunt made $8,230 last month. she works on the internet and drives a Aston Martin V12 Vantage. All she did was get lucky and follow the information you can find here..dft.ba/-18Sh

  37. Ro Gupta

    Congrats again @wmoug:disqus .  Looking better and better. Would be great if at some point Engagio could be accessed within Gmail – maybe like a Rapportive-style sidebar.And of course there’s mobile.Keep it up!

  38. falicon

    Congrats to the whole engag.io team…exciting news and happy to see it continue to evolve.I haven’t adopted it yet myself, primarily because the first step requires action by me…I generally don’t have a problem staying up with the conversations I’ve initiated (honestly I don’t generate that much conversational content online)…but I do have a bigger problem in finding the quality conversations that I *should* or *want* to be engaging with.I have always had big hopes for Disqus filling that role, but they haven’t seemed ready/able to move beyond their initial core/product yet (only so many things they can go after at once). So when engag.io moves into that realm, and start to point out conversations and people around the web that I need to be getting into…then I’ll be converted big time (p.s. I don’t think what you offer now is that far off from being able to realize this dream — especially if you are starting to get conversation data at scale, which I’m sure mentions by Fred are def. bringing).Keep us posted!

    1. RichardF

      ….completely agree about Disqus Kevin

    2. awaldstein

      It’s been a ongoing dream to be able to search by topic by conversational dynamics.There are very few topics in which the facts themselves are actionable.The data  set for this is here. The problem to be solved is fairly well articulated. Just needs to be visualized and surfaced into a workflow. Non trivial but an exciting promise.

    3. William Mougayar

      Thanks Kevin. We accept the challenge.

  39. Miljenko Hatlak

    It’s almost a month as I’m using http://engag.io and I have to say that I’m very pleased with it. Use of the service is very simple and it already has some power features. I like the way they approach to the user, without any bullish action. During one period of some 7-10 days I wasn’t active, and the next time at log-in I received the message that my account was deactivated (or something like that) since they thought I won’t use it any more. Account was instantly reset and everything work well. I think maybe it’s better to perform this action “silently” and just inform user that his/her logs will be updated soon.

    1. William Mougayar

      Hi Miljenko, Thanks for your great feedback. Actually, that “welcome back” process is one of the optimization tricks we implemented to spread our processing to active users and relax them for less active users. Basically, if you don’t visit for 1 week, we stop pulling your new comments. As soon as you return, we re-activate your account right away and pull the latest. That way, we don’t burn un-necessary cycles.Maybe “de-activate” is a strong word. We should use “dormant”?

      1. Mike

        William, try the word “sleep” mode. Sleep is a passive but descriptive.

        1. William Mougayar

          Good choice of words. Thanks. – posted via Engagio

      2. Miljenko Hatlak

        This is good way to optimize and it’s actually nice to see how your latest posts slowly fill up the log tree. Do you have a plan to go out with some kind of API?

        1. William Mougayar

          Yes. What you would an API about, and what would you like to use it for? – posted via Engagio

      3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        “RESTING”

        1. William Mougayar

          That reminds me of Restful api ;)- posted via Engagio

      4. LE

        I like to avoid words with a negative meaning if possible. “Dormant” reminds me of a forgotten bank account. Buzz kill just like “deactivate”. It should be something happy, upbeat, positive. Maybe “hibernate” along with a cute graphic of a bear.  Or as @FakeGrimlock:disqus says “resting” along with an appropriate graphic. (Important but not as important as new graphics, logo, ux as others have pointed out.) For some of that you can try http://www.99designs.com and http://logotournament.com/ 

        1. William Mougayar

          Good ideas. Thanks – posted via Engagio

  40. Elia Freedman

    Congratulations, William. I’m only sorry I didn’t have time to help with the beta. Let the roller coaster begin! Is this your first start-up?

    1. William Mougayar

      2nd one…but 3rd business I owned. Everything I learned, did or didn’t do well previously is in this one. 

      1. Elia Freedman

        “Everything I learned, did or didn’t do well previously is in this one.”No truer words have ever been spoken.

      2. matthughes

        Well said William.I’m excited for you.I’m going to dive into the new features today: I’m feeling engagious

        1. William Mougayar

          Engagious – I love that word. It’s more french than english! – posted via Engagio

          1. matthughes

            I’ve licensed engagious under Creative Commons, the French version, so you’re free to use it. ;)Congratulations again on the early success — posted via Engagio

      3. Donna Brewington White

        Well, obviously, William dear, you have learned a lot.  

  41. Jon Michael Miles

    I signed up, liked the service instantly. Aggregated comments is a great thing. Nitpicky thing that means alot to some people – perhaps at refining the site graphics. Some are a bit fuzzy. 

  42. Avram

    What a cool idea – it would be great if flickr was in the mix as well.

    1. William Mougayar

      Or Instagram? We looked at it a bit, but Comments & conversations are still 2nd class citizens to the pictures. When that changes, then we will look at it again.

      1. leigh

        pictures can be conversation 🙂

        1. William Mougayar

          Why do pics generate more conversations/comments on Facebook than on Instagram?- posted via Engagio

          1. leigh

            here’s more what i mean – check out this blog post and the comments. You’ll see exactly what i mean …. http://jezebel.com/5881997/…- posted via Engagio

  43. andyswan

    Sweeeeeeeeeet

    1. William Mougayar

      Thanks Andy. Pass the bourbon

  44. John Revay

    “words and capital”Both very important, plus the value of AVC effect, such a great way to get the word out especially during the “build the user base stage”.

  45. Steven Kane

    veddy cool!

  46. Robert Thuston

    William,  what have you done so far internally?  what got the site to the point of scalability?  have you done any legal stuff? skill level of those helping, how many, how you’re thinking about scaling that?   would be interested to see this in an AVC post, or a personal post?  You done good.  Robert

    1. William Mougayar

      Hi Robert, sorry i didn’t see this comment earlier. The scalability process is usually an on-going thing. Key is to stay a step or two ahead of your current need. It had to do a lot with process optimizations. Next goal? 100,000 users. 

      1. Robert Thuston

        William, I appreciate you responding.  You building this product has been an inspiration point for me in the last 45 days to get my own stuff rolling.  Keep up the good work.

  47. Allen Lau

    Congrats! Just signed up and test driving it as we speak. Excited to see more and more great startups coming out of Toronto!

    1. William Mougayar

      Hi Allen, let’s meet! We’re not too far.

  48. grouppublisher

    Canadian Innovation…the best!

    1. jason wright

      Oh, so NOT a Nimble white label?

      1. William Mougayar

        I hadn’t heard of Nimble til a month ago. We’re different & going in different directions from what I can tell.

        1. jason wright

          Great minds think alike :-)http://www.thisweekinstartu…William Quigley seems smart too;http://www.thisweekinstartu

  49. grouppublisher

    Check out Engagio by William Mouyageur…our very own Canuck.

    1. jason wright

      …spelling, it’s an ‘a’ not a ‘w’.

    2. William Mougayar

      Thanks Fawn! Great to see you in the conversation.

  50. jason wright

    William, are your team going to take a bow here?

    1. William Mougayar

      Thanks Jason. We will, virtually. One them popped in. The others were working. We don’t rest on our laurels 🙂

  51. tetsuotrees

    Received access last night, and already I can tell Engagio is going to be a part of the standard battery of apps I use on a regular basis.  Really, really great work, and I’m excited to see where you guys take it.I must say, though, that I’m shocked Google has overlooked making this kind of functionality a part of its communication and collaboration suite.  Google’s loss, of course, and I’m glad you’re filling the void.

    1. William Mougayar

      Google? Shhh….

  52. andyidsinga

    I like it alot …but I still don’t gravitate to it naturally throughout the day – I think that has something to do with update frequency (i.e. pulling data from my connected svcs) and it not quite catching all my twitter conversations based on comparing the twitter “interactions” screen.The “Shared Links” screen is waay cool (I must have missed that earlier..).

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      SAME ISSUE.LIKE IDEA.NOT FIND COMPELLING.

      1. Jess Bachman

        not all useful habits are compelling, and most take 30 days of use to form.I didn’t start brushing my teeth everyday because it was engaging.Force yourself to check engagio once a day for 30 days.  If it doesn’t stick then you have a better barometer of compelling usage.

    2. Ray Bonneau

      I really like this a lot too, but am having some update problems with Twitter myself.  It is not pulling in any new conversations, and the “Shared Links” screen just throws an error up for me.  I’m hoping these items are addressed quickly, because i want to use the app more.

  53. andyidsinga

    Thats awesome that you guys made a seed investment in William!Congrats William !

  54. Jess Bachman

    I would definitely get a better logo. I can recall a dozen forgettable startups that use a variation on the chat bubble for their logos.

    1. jason wright

      I doubt it was the logo that made them forgettable. Bubbles burst, utility doesn’t. 

      1. Jess Bachman

        Indeed, but as a designer i have an advèrse gut reaction to “stock” logos. Pet peeve more than anything.- posted via Engagio

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          UX, DESIGN, BIGGEST WEAKNESS OF ENGAGIO SO FAR.MAYBE THEM FORGET FOLLOW GRIMLOCK RULE OF FOUNDING TEAMS.

          1. William Mougayar

            We’re ready now to hire a UX/UI expert to MAKE USER EXPERIENCE AWESOME. It was a timing thing.

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            UX NOT POLISH PUT ON AFTER.IS FOUNDATION OF WHAT TO BUILD IN FIRST PLACE.HIRE UX THAT DEMAND YOU REBUILD ENGAGIO FROM GROUND UP.OTHERWISE NOT WORTH HIRE.

          3. fredwilson

            i agree FGit needs some polish

          4. Donna Brewington White

            FG you are ruthless, relentless.Don’t stop.

          5. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            NOTHING STOP THE GRIMLOCK.- posted via Engagio

          6. William Mougayar

            He is a pain and a pleasure…at the same time :)- posted via Engagio

    2. William Mougayar

      That was a quick & dirty stock photography logo. If you are a logo designer, please contact me!

  55. Mark Essel

    Woohoo, I’m #15

    1. Donna Brewington White

      Wow, how did we get those numbers? 

      1. William Mougayar

        These are the numbers in your profile URL. They are in sequence of user registration. If it’s any consolation, I’m #3. A couple of my engineers registered before I did.

        1. Mark Essel

          Testing requires it 🙂

          1. William Mougayar

            Of course.- posted via Engagio

        2. Donna Brewington White

          Consolation?  I’m thrilled with my number!  Right after Fred — who could complain?  But I did find it amusing that you are number 3. Maybe just change your number to “bartender.” 😉

          1. William Mougayar

            I think I can make that happen.- posted via Engagio

      2. Mark Essel

        I’m sure you could guess.#1 is missing , #2 is Ming-Ho , #3 is William

        1. William Mougayar

          You’re too good Mark…- posted via Engagio

          1. Donna Brewington White

            Oops.  Corrected comment above to say “Engagio”!

        2. Donna Brewington White

          I figured it out by plugging in some of the other numbers in the URL starting at 1. Was just surprised at my number. I missed the AVC post introducing Engagio and figured I’d be somewhere after the first 100. Honored to say the least.- posted via Engagio

  56. Alex Shartsis

    So impressed with the AVC community. Show up during business hours pacific time, and there are already 179 comments. It’s hard to keep up. Or think of original things to say. 

    1. William Mougayar

      You just did 🙂

  57. David S

    When I created my account I was greeted by an empty inbox. Now what? I clicked Dashboard, and then back to Inbox and then there was 1 conversation. Granted, I’m not a huge commenter, but it would be nice to have a little introductory hand-holding. @wmoug:disqus 

    1. William Mougayar

      Have you connected/authenticated with the various networks/commenting systems via the Account page? We take you there after login & there’s a message in yellow that prompts you to connect.That said, you’re right that we could be doing more hand-holding. We’re looking for a UI/UX expert actually.

  58. William Mougayar

    As I reflect on this day & comments, I (and my team) would like to thank the AVC community for being the inspiration and the spark that have helped us conceive, develop, test, and evolve Engagio into what it is today. This kind of feedback can’t be bought nor asked for. It is given. It is given because you care, and I truly appreciate it and consider us lucky to be a part of this community. Thank you. 

    1. fredwilson

      nicely said William

    2. Donna Brewington White

      By the time I was able to sit down and comment yesterday (meetings ran long, day ran short) I was so far at the bottom that I decided to let my email to you suffice.  Changed my mind.I wanted to publicly congratulate you. Engagio is a direct response to what many of us who take online engagement seriously are wanting. There have been times I’ve thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if…” only to discover that the “what if” is a new Engagio feature or is soon to become one.  I admit that I am still figuring it out and discovering how it fits into my daily routine.  There are a few glitches here and there and some other “what ifs” and “if only’s” but we will figure those out.  I hope you don’t mind my saying “we” but from the beginning, you have made this feel like a community project and this has bought some sense of personal investment and commitment.  That is one of the things I have loved about Engagio — right from the beginning it has lived up to its name in engaging the community.  “We” are determined that this will work.If there is someone who can spearhead a tool to make online engagement more meaningful and realizable, it is you, William. Thanks for taking a stab at it…and one more of many “Congratulations” to come.And thanks, once again, Fred, for serving as an inspiration to entrepreneurs and for putting your money where your mouth is.  Your seed investment empowers this community at a new level, because this project of William’s truly does feel like something that was birthed in and nurtured by this community.

      1. William Mougayar

        Donna, your words wowed me. Yes, it did feel like an open project with all involved in some part. Actually, the email you sent me today- we’re calling it the Donna White feature, and you’ll have it early next week. @JohnRevay suggested an auto-sizeable text box, and that’s been done already. So, in essence, many of the AVC members have given input and we are taking most of it and acting on it as time and priorities permit. I am appreciative of the collaborative engagement. – posted via Engagio

        1. Donna Brewington White

          My own feature! Wow, William. Thank you. And some people only have stars named after them. BTW, I don’t mean to overstate the community aspect — even though you are inviting input and ideas and receiving them, I know this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the effort being invested you and your team into this venture.BTW — in trying to post this comment got the engagio “fail whale” — I like the use of the word “snazzier” — but you’re setting yourself for high expectations there. ;)- posted via Engagio

          1. William Mougayar

            If you got the Hold that thought message, it means we were making an update. We typically make them late EST. – posted via Engagio

          2. Donna Brewington White

            Generally if I refresh, I get right in.- posted via Engagio

  59. EmilSt

    Great product! Good luck…

  60. Modernist

    How do you build something like this without fear that a bigger company is going to displace you?  Btw, love the talk about fragmentation.

    1. fredwilson

      that is the primary fear that stops people from starting companiesi think that fear is way overblownsure it happensbut not as often as you might think

    2. Jess Bachman

      To displace you they have to do it BETTER.  Big companies are notorious at getting it wrong.

  61. David Noël

    Going to give it a test run, William! 

    1. William Mougayar

      Thanks David! You live online I think, no?

      1. David Noël

        Pretty much, yes!Sent from my Gulfstream V

        1. William Mougayar

          Funny. Are u in NYC?Sent from my Volvo – posted via Engagio

          1. David Noël

            I was two weeks ago, actually. Now back in Berlin. Posting this from engag.io. This is great work, William- posted via Engagio

  62. Adam Feldman

    An interesting and useful take on unified communication. I’m rooting for them.It’ll be interesting to see how they surface the most important conversations/people. Pulling signals out of this kind of noise is very tough.

  63. Henry Yates

    Just signed up – great product already. Nice work William, canny investment Fred!

  64. andyjiang

    Hey Fred!Just checked out Engag.io; very cool stuff happening here. I like that it aggregates all responses to your digital presence in one location. The dashboard analysis across all social networks is quite valuable. My only concern is whether or not the utility from the analysis and response aggregation exceeds the initial energy required for me to open the website and check my Engag.io.Some add-ons that could increase the value of Engag.io would be e-mail notification for each response with the ability to reply to that e-mail to post a response.

    1. William Mougayar

      Thanks Andy. But the email notifications would defeat the purpose of Engagio, because we’re replacing those by the Inbox where you go when you want to respond to these comments. At least, that’s based on the feedback we get from users who prefer not to receive many email notifications because they get lost in the email shuffle. That said, we’ll be generating an email to you, but with a different purpose. 

      1. andyjiang

        I see. I understand the annoyance with email alerts, but if there was one channel where I am notified that somebody has responded to one of my comments, that would be great.I found your response through the “You have a new rank” button when I was about to comment on another one of Fred’s blog entries. Should probably have just checked out Engag.io!

        1. William Mougayar

          Do signup & let me know what you think. Thanks

  65. William Mougayar

    Both good ideas Dudu. We have lots of experience with semantic content analysis and presentation. It will come handy soon. Stay tuned…:)- posted via Engagio

  66. William Mougayar

    Thanks Cynthia! Is it a bit like Rapportive? I couldn’t get in. Needs an invite code.

  67. Cynthia Schames

    No, Rapportive sits inside Gmail. Contactually sends you reminders of the last time you touched base with a specific person (email only).  “If you had put a contact in a bucket, we automatically remind you to follow up with them, based on the rules you set for that bucket. Otherwise, we look at how often you’ve spoken to them in a past, compared with how long it’s been since you last spoke to them. That helps us determine who the important contacts you have who you’ve fallen out of touch with.”I just emailed Tony Cappaert to ask him to send you an invite to Contactually.  He might take a while though, because last night was #500 Demo Days and, yeah, after party.

  68. markslater

    rapportive is absolutely awesome for me. i use it every day. have you not tried it william? i think i mentioned it when you first announced engag.io.

  69. William Mougayar

    Ok…You want a bigger box…I think we can do that. – posted via Engagio

  70. William Mougayar

    Yes, I was referring to Contactually for the invite code. I do use Rapportive and like it. – posted via Engagio

  71. William Mougayar

    yes, i do use it a lot and like it. I was referring to not being to get into Contactually. – posted via Engagio

  72. John Revay

    Only using the real estate once i hit reply- posted via Engagio

  73. William Mougayar

    Thanks Charlie. Coming from you, that means a lot.

  74. William Mougayar

    Are you a UI expert? Please contact me 😉 thanks – posted via Engagio