[HTML4]One of the most cryptic and stealthy startups around here lately has been Nozzl Media. We knew some of the people who were working on it. Really smart people like Steve Woodward and Brian Hendrickson. And we knew it had something to do with controlling and managing the firehose of information on the Web—in real-time.
But beyond that, we had very little hint of exactly what the Nozzl folks were doing. That is, until today.
Nozzl has just provided a brief glimpse of where they’re going and what they’re doing with a precursor to their future products. It’s called the Nozzl Real-Time Stream Widget.
At first blush, it looks like a very simple widget. A real-time filter on Twitter topics that changes dynamically as more information comes into the pipe. But what looks like something relatively simpleis actually deceptively complex. Because directly below that stream—a click away—is a wealth of information on Portland based topics. How much? Well, it’s “stocked it with information from 10 public records sources, 24 news sources, about 100 blogs and four social-media services: Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and YouTube.”
And that is just an example of the power of Nozzl. A very small slice of what the widget could do. With more data sources and more active curation, it’s easy to imagine how an incredibly rich data set could be created and managed—and all be available with up-to-the-second accuracy.
The Real-Time Stream Widget, you see, isn’t so much a product as it’s a launch pad. The 10 public records sources in the initial Portland stream, for example, are a trickle compared to what we could add from among the thousands of sources available from local, state and federal agencies. Other improvements could, and probably will, include geotagging, location-based advertising, self-service advertising, archival search, saved user and filter preferences, trending topics, and dashboards for news and advertising staffs and for advertisers themselves.
The widget, you see, is just the first in a line of potential products. And if the platform even lives up to a small part of its potential? Those products are going to have an intrinsic value for which people will gladly pay. And that’s good news.
So if you’re interested in getting a glimpse at what Nozzl has been up to for the past year, you’ve finally got your chance. Take a few seconds to drop them a note and you’ll get to try the real-time stream. Start mucking with it. And start thinking about ways this technology could be applied.
This could be huge.
For more information, visit Nozzl Media.
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Congrats to Steve & the team at Nozzl Media! Steve participated in our summer 2009 cycle of Portland Ten– we’re thrilled about their launch today, and look forward to their continued progress. 🙂