Wiggio

Infobox_Company
company_name = Wiggio
company_
company_type = Privately held company
foundation = 2008
location = Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
industry = web development
products = web applications
num_employees = 4 (2008)
homepage = [http://www.wiggio.com/ www.wiggio.com]
slogan = "Making it easy to work in groups"

Wiggio is a privately held web application company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The firm was co-founded in 2008 by CEO Dana Lampert, Lance Polivy, Rob Doyle, and Derek Doyle as a company with a self-described focus on group collaboration, initially focusing on the college market. Wiggio also produces a [http://blog.wiggio.com/ blog] .

Lampert and Polivy are 2008 Cornell University graduates who developed their business concept with Cornell's Student Agencies Entrepreneurship Lab ( [http://www.studentagencies.com/info.php?page=elabprevious Elab] ).cite web|title=elab|accessdate=2008-09-17|publisher=Cornell Student Agencies|url=http://www.studentagencies.com/info.php?page=elabprevious]

History

According to the website's [http://www.wiggio.com/about.html About] page, Lampert and Polivy say, "As seniors at Cornell, we started Wiggio out of our own frustrations with unnecessarily clogged inboxes, using five different websites for five different functions, and all the other hassles associated with working in groups. We were tired of sending eleven emails back and forth just to set a meeting time. We were tired of that guy who just never knows where and when to be there. We were tired of list-servs, contact lists, phone-chains and incompatibilities. We wanted everything to be in one place, and we wanted it simple. So we created Wiggio."

Lampert and Polivy teamed up with Web 2.0 program developers and brothers Rob Doyle and Derek Doyle, following an introduction by Marc Lampert, Dana's father. Rob Doyle worked as a consultant to Lampert's firm, Pharmaceutics.

Rob Doyle was one of the developers of the first desktop publishing program, MacPublisher, introduced for the newly introduced Apple Macintosh computer in 1984, while he was an undergraduate at Brown University. Derek Doyle is the main programmer and developer at [http://www.skybuilders.com skyBuilders.com] , where he works with his father, Bob Doyle.

Wiggio was introduced to the Cornell campus in Spring 2008 and attracted about 1500 users.

[http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/15/wiggio-makes-collaboration-easier-for-college-students/ VentureBeat] says Wiggio has raised $450,000 in angel funding.cite web|title=investors|accessdate=2008-09-17|publisher=Venture Beat|url=http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/15/wiggio-makes-collaboration-easier-for-college-students/] [http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/09/11/wiggio-offers-free-groupware-for-harried-college-students/2/ XConomy.com] says the small group of angel investors are family and friends, including Bob Doyle.cite web|title=xconomy|accessdate=2008-09-17|publisher=boston globe|url=http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/09/08/more_than_one_way_to_get_fit/]

The public beta launch was September 15, 2008. Wiggio had about 5000 users as of September 17, 2008.

CNet described Wiggio as "the best new Web 2.0 collaboration" company after TechCrunch50. cite web|title=cnet|accessdate=2008-09-17|publisher=cnet|url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10041326-26.html]

oftware

Wiggio's interface includes six basic toolsets:

Calendar — A fairly simple shared calendar that allows you to manage group events. There's no easy way to add this calendar to whatever time management system you use, but you can set up an automatic email whenever a change is made to the calendar (or any other part of your group). Gmail can translate those emails into Google Calendar events without an issue.

Folder — You can upload most file types to your Wiggio groups. Wiggio can even handle version-tracking automatically. A group member can download the file, change it and re-upload it. He doesn't need to change the file name or anything for Wiggio to recognize it as a new version. Old versions are still available.

Meeting — Wiggio offers two types of meetings for users: a chatroom and a conference call. For conference calls, Wiggio uses Rondee, a free conference call service. Wiggio will also host chats for your group.

Poll — Not all collaboration applications offer any tools to help with decision making, but with Wiggio's Poll system, you can matters to a vote in your group. You don't even need to track responses to get an answer.

Messages — Through Wiggio, you can send messages to group members in three different ways: text message, email and voice note. You can also post notes on your group's home page, but no guarantee that group members will log in and see them.

Links — The link tool is simply a place to paste in links so that your group has a shared set of bookmarks.

Architecture

Wiggio is serving from Amazon Web Services to provide scalability to hundreds of thousands of users.

ee also

* Web 2.0

References

External links

* [http://www.wiggio.com/ Official site]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnvDn-fd-SQ YouTube video on Wiggio]
* [http://blog.wiggio.com/ Wiggio blog]