[Dear FTC, et al., In the interest of full disclosure and whatnot, Iterasi has been a client of mine in the past. I was not involved in this product enhancement in any way, shape, or form.]
One of the many things I love about the Portland startup scene is the whole “prairie dog” thing. No, not that prairie dog silly. No, not that one either. I mean how startups will pop up their proverbial heads with something cool and then immediately head underground to get to work on the next product or feature. Then, they’ll suddenly resurface again.
Well, Portland-based Iterasi just raised its head again, this week, with some updates to its PositivePress product that should make it easier for non-techy types to use.
For those not familiar, PositivePress is a fairly new product built on top of Iterasi’s Web archiving technology. It functions very much like a good old fashioned clipping service for the Web. Finding things that are important to you and freezing the Web pages, tweets, and links as they appeared at that very moment. So you can always find that old Web page. No matter how the current page has changed.
It’s a great product—especially for companies—who are interested in keeping tabs on what people are saying about them or their products on the Web.
And with this recent update, Iterasi wedged quite a few compelling features into the product that make it easier to use. But I’m going to touch on a couple that are noteworthy.
First, they’ve simplified the whole “searching and archiving” thing for users.
We built PositivePress using best in breed Open Web technologies (read: RSS feeds). This works for some customers who like the ability to monitor specific media sources. But the number of people who feel comfortable working at this level is admittedly a subset of the general populace.
How to fix the problem? Provide a simple interface that helps the user get the work done. Which is what Iterasi has done with its new “Topic” feature. Simply enter a term you want to follow, tag it, and send PositivePress off on its merry way. It will scour the Web for the topic and archive all the content it finds in that regard. Easy peasy.
Second, they’ve made it easier to see what you’re doing with a new dashboard. This gives users visual clues on how their topics are trending and how much they’re archiving about what.
And when you’re trying to juggle all of your projects and drink from the fire hose at the same time, it’s often those visual clues that help you realize something important is happening. Or nothing is happening and you need to work harder.
Again, there are a number of other features that accompanied this release. And they’re all worth a look. If you’re interested, read about all of them in the Iterasi post on PositivePress. But long story short, it’s now easier to get started with PositivePress and easier to see what you’re doing with PositivePress. And that’s always a good thing.
For more information on the product and this latest release, visit Iterasi.
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