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Posts Tagged ‘StartupReview’

How to Build a Quick, Clickable Website or iPhone App Prototype

01 Jul


Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Mocksup

Quick Pitch: Make mockups — websites, iPhone apps, logos and more — through simple sharing and feedback, automatic versioning and even prototyping.

Genius Idea: You know how they say necessity is the mother of invention? Well, once upon a time (the time being last summer, specifically), a man was trying to build a website and needed to show his higher-ups a prototype — something clickable, not just a JPEG or Photoshop file. He needed to give them “a feel for the new design and site structure.”

What was last year’s web designer’s nightmare is now a freelancer or small design shop’s dream. Mocksup will let you share your designs, add collaborators to your project, get comments and notes from your bosses or clients, track different versions of your work and yes, create clickable prototypes of your site and app design ideas.

It’s a cool combination of digital wireframing and WYSIWYG website creation. It might also be the only online app that supports clickable iPhone app prototyping.

To get an idea for what these prototypes look and feel like, check out this web design example.

(Interesting side note: Mocksup was created in 2009 for the Rails Rumble, an event we recently named as one of our all-time favorite hackathons.)

Sounds great, but how do these guys — Adam Howell and Jim Van Fleet, the app’s creators — make money?

Mocksup has an affordable subscription fee. You can test the site with one project, ten mockups and three collaborators for free, then they ask you to pay between $9 and $19 each month, depending on how much you use the app. We find these prices extremely reasonable.

What do you think of Mocksup? How does it compare with other prototyping tools you’ve used in the past?

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: Agency, freelance, iphone app, web design, website

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Adjix Pays You For Your Shortlinking Performance (The Startup Review)

09 Sep

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Adjix

20-word Description: Adjix is an online ad network that pays people to shorten links.

CEO’s Pitch: Adjix is a cross between TinyURL and Google AdWords. We let people shorten URLs (called “Linkers”). When a person clicks on the shortened URL, we display the original content with an optional ad at the top of the page. Both the Linkers and advertisers can see detailed link data such as who clicked on their link or ad (by IP address), when, and how many times. Very shortly, we’ll also report the webpage that the link appeared on when it was clicked (referrer) and also the OS and Web browser version.

Mashable’s Take: If you take Adjix at face value, it seems an interesting concept. It is a very simple yet potentially quite lucrative model built on a premise of revenue sharing well-refined by Google. It charges advertisers fees for impressions and click-throughs, and shares the bounty with people creating links.

Yet it is not only for the potential monetary push that Adjix is so intriguing. There is a utilitarian side to the coin. Because Adjix allows users to glimpse the click rate of the links they create, they can quickly determine whether such linking is grabbing interest. For folks trying to drum up traffic, this is a tool definitely worth adding to the chest. What’s more, if you need to expand the power of the engine, Adjix lists on its homepage a section devoted to the “Adjix Open API.” Altogether, it looks like something the frequent linker would very much enjoy getting on deck.

Now, there are some points raised about the relatively unique way Adjix functions which may not suit the end users. The most pressing one being spam. The service could be conducive to abuse. Indeed, last month, Performancing’s Jeff Chandler highlighted this concern with reference to the startup’s framework. In his response, Adjix founder and president Joe Moreno explained very simply that “we’ll shut down any spammer’s links. Everyone hates spam and we intend to freeze any spammer’s accounts.”

It’s definitely the case that Adjix has its ups and its downs. And the downs can seem a bit disconcerting, given the financial incentives involved. But so it is with various other ad engines on the Web, and Adjix appears to be one built in a fashion that could keep things aboveboard.

One thing is sure. The numbers Adjix provides are very easy to grasp. Advertisers pay $0.35 CPM for impressions, and $0.75 per valid click-through. Linkers subsequently receive $0.10 CPM, and $0.20 per valid click-through.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

 
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