When we started Publictivity, it was originally an application for the Public Relations industry.  Over time, after listening to valuable feedback and seeing what others had to say, we realized that Publictivity is useful for all companies and a ton of different industries.  We’re going to start posting short 3-4 minute videos showing how Publictivity is useful for different industries.  Here’s the first video for Public Relations:

Hey Everyone,

We’re hiring a fulltime lead hacker + engineer.Check our listing on startuply out:

Publictivity Looking for (Rockstar/Ninja Omitted for Overusage) Lead Hacker

Ps- Startuply is amazing.  Every startup should post there.

Pardon some random cosmetic changes you’ll see in the next 24 hours.  We’re cleaning up the blog, updating the site, adding some new features, and more.  Oh yeah that pretty much means one thing… we’re launching in the next few days :-o.

Hey Everyone,

We’ve always believed in an open culture at Publictivity, and trying to get to Foo Camp/ Startup Camp held by O’Reilly Alphatech Ventures is no exception.    A month ago, I dropped my entire life and moved to Silicon Valley, while the rest of our team (by team, I mean 2 other people) stayed in Miami,FL. It’s the American (Geek) Dream, but not an easy one with having to leave behind anyone and everything.  Everyone I already know and continue to meet seems to ask me one question… Why did you move? Was it fundraising?  Was it the “dream”?  Was it a change of scenery?  It wasn’t any one of those things specifically, but something a hell of a lot more important: people.  Silicon Valley is endowed with people that will blow your mind.  These people encompass such a wide spectrum that they are other entrepreneurs, potential investors, biz dev partners, like minded hackers, or just intelligent people to talk with about technology until 6 AM.  When you put together all of these amazing people in a geographic area, you start conversations that help spark great ventures such as Apple, HP, YouTube, Facebook, Netscape, and more.  

On July 10-11 at Startup Camp and July 11-13 at Foo Camp, many of these great conversations are going to be happening with some of the world’s most intelligent minds.  I believe that we will learn a ton from these conversations, but that we can also give a ton back to the community through our own experiences.  We’re working on two areas that we could talk about all day that are not only important to O’Reilly ATV , but the entire community as a whole: open source software and information management tools/open data.  

We believe that open source software is what drives startups and innovation.  With tools such as MySQL, PHP, Linux, Eclipse, and more, we have seen the democratization of what was once a selective and expensive proposition… creating a web app.  Frank and I started our first company when we were both just about 20 years old, and realized through the process that entrepreneurs need tools to run their business.  Most of these tools are expensive, disconnected, and flat out suck.  We knew there had to be a better way to give entrepreneurs and companies the tools they needed to run their business, but at the open source level.  What if Sharepoint, Lotus Notes, and more were open source?  They’re powerful tools that significantly improve a startup, but often too expensive or over burdening for startups to deal with.  What if we added to the MySQL, PHP, Linux, and other open source tools, a great open source solution that let companies become more productive not only through the apps we’ve built, but eventually the other apps developers build on our platform.  The same way PHP, MySQL, and more dramatically reduced the costs needed to technically startup a company, is the same way Publictivity will dramatically reduce the costs for running your startup’s business processes.

If the past paragraph described why we created Publictivity, then this describes more of the what.  We’re creating a new way for companies to organize and share information.  Entrepreneurs and companies are so overwhelmed with information, and at the end of the day the best way to organize + share this information is through a horrible one-two punch of excel spreadsheets (organize) and a loose string of emails (share).  With Publictivity we’re giving companies a way to create data structures that matter to them, whether it be to manage contacts, track press coverage, log customer support issues, or track investment deals as a VC.  The possibilities are endless, because the structures are open, allowing companies to easily create forms for their data in a way that is relevant to them.  Think allowing companies to do with data, what Freebase has allowed consumers to do on the web. Last, but just as important, we make sure that any and all information can be shared socially and flow easily to the rest of the organization.  In short, we’re taking as many concepts from the social web, and applying them to companies.  If we can make information flow inside of companies as fast as consumer web tools such as Twitter and Facebook, things are going to change big time.

Maybe we’re 100% wrong, and things will blow up in our face.  Trying to change the world through software is as risky and uncertain as things can get.  I am certain about one thing though: we’ll not only learn a lot from Startup Camp / Foo Camp, but more importantly help contribute all the knowledge we’ve learned over the past 2 years while building Publictivity. Hopefully, we can join in on the 10-13th along with 5-7 other startups to start discussing the amazing things we’re all doing, but also will be inspired to do.

-Jason Baptiste

 

Update:

 

So about a week ago we posted the presentation and slides on Hacker News. We got our asses handed to us.  In short: Great presentation, but

 

a) Too long (27 slides vs 12 now)

b) Hard for people to simply understand what we do

c)  No straight forward use case.  What are we going to change? ie- this is how things work now and this is how things will change once we exist. 

 

Attached below is our full pitch in video form along with a PDF of the slides + notes:

 

View PDF Slides on Scribd

 

At Publictivity, we’re huge believers in community.  We believe that the technology industry is becoming a better place through leveraging the power of community.  When discussing our strategies for our beta and launch site, we came up with two really great ideas: the educational blog you’re reading right now and an online community for PR professionals to interact with each other.  So without further adieu I’m proud to announce the Publictivity Online Community.  It’s already budding with some really awesome posts.  Below is a quick overview of what’s going on:

• Discussion Forums- Ability to discuss certain topics such as Social Media, PR, Blogging, and more
• Your Own Profile- your own profile with information, picture,etc. 
• Polls- Ability to conduct polls and such
• Tagging- tagging of forum posts
• Messaging (coming soon)- Soon you can message fellow members

Wow… this has been a long time coming. The team at Publictivity is beyond excited to have you here for the first time at our Education Blog. We started blogging in late 2006- mid 2007, but stopped in preparation for Beta. We wanted to create something more than just a blog, but a resource that was useful to Public Relations Practitioners, Social Media Enthusiasts, Bloggers, Startups, and more. To keep things simple, we’ve created a list of what the Education Blog IS and IS NOT.What The Publictivity Education Blog IS

• A Resource For Anyone- We made this resource for everyone, not just our first target customers, Public Relations professionals. Whether you are a social media enthusiast, a student, an entrepreneur trying to launch their startup,etc., this blog will provide useful insights.
• One Side Of The Story- This is fact mixed with opinion. To put it simple, it is a lot of interpretation. The great thing about blogging comes in the form of different opinions. Everyone gets to tell their side of the story. Look at TechMeme for example.
• An Open Conversation- Comments will always be open. Period.
• Explaining Why Things Work- This is about why things work. The inner workings and the deep analysis, not a straight forward observation. For example, the community aspect of facebook moreso than the technical or UI aspects of Facebook.

What the Publictivity Education Blog IS NOT

• Purely About Public Relations- right now our focus is on Public Relations, but as entrepreneurs, we have a ton to share. You’ll also gain insights into our company, and issues that we face.
• A Definitive Answer- We’re not the end all source for the topics we talk about. Most of the time we’ll provide supplementary sources, that might even argue against what we say.
• Ego Boosting- We’re not here to sit on our high horses, and tell you what’s right. We want to help contribute to the community with our thoughts.