Loogic English

Imanol Iglesias is starting a social network for travel called Genviajero and has done it utilizing Google’s App Engine platform. I think this is the first site I’ve come across that is being built using the App Engine and I think it would be worth talking about a bit.

As we can see in the video of the presentation of App Engine made by Joaquin Cuenca in the Campus Party, what Google is looking for is to support those web projects that have the most possibilities for growth. If Google provides them with solutions for scalability, then we will have projects with high traffic and both Google and the project will be able to earn more money through advertising.

Here’s how Google App Engine works: the programmer, in this case Imanol, develops the application in Python (the only language available as of now) and uploads it to App Engine to have his web operational. The programmer doesn’t need to worry about databases, servers and other such issues related to the systems. App Engine also permits users to log in to the platform using their Google accounts, so users with existing accounts do not need to register on the web. As I am not a technical guy, I don’t want to go into detail in this aspect. If you want to know more, I recommend this article by Andreas Krohn.

As for Genviajero, I must say that as a social network for travellers, its basic function is sharing information on travel destinations and based on these favourites, make comments, opinions, recommendations, … Images of the sites added to the social network can be viewed on Panoramio, and soon it will allow users to upload their own pictures. On these lines, I think that in a social network like Genviajero, it makes a lot of sense to aggregate the maximum amount of information available related to places like hotels, restaurants, weather information, etc.

It was time we dedicated some words to Psicofxp, an internet community founded by Ismael Briasco in the year 2000 and which is now one of the most important websites in Argentina.

I find it interesting to see how a site established since so many years renews its design and offers many new functionalities to turn itself into a site that is much more social. Psicofxp should become an example for all those sites who continue with their outdated design since years thinking that if they tamper with it, their users will leave the site en masse. As long as the interests of the users are respected and the main line of the site is maintained, a change of design should be positive as it shows that the site is evolving and adapting itself to the changing times and styles.

This new design of Psicofxp is the most visible part of the evolution of a forum towards becoming a social network, where the users, apart from sharing opinions and conversations, can upload their photos, videos and create their profiles to strike up connections with their friends in the community.

Lastly, the employment section of Psicofxp is managed by Bumeran, which I understand is some kind of commercial agreement. This contrasts with the tendency we were lately observing in other social networks of creating a classifieds channel with the platform of OLX.

Seen in Kabytes.

It seems that internet and the world of wines get along very well. Lately, there are a lot of blogs, online shops and social networks proliferating around this theme.

Vinogusto is one of those social networks about wine, which we talked of when it received a round of investment and now is worth talking about for the good results it is showing.

When i see cases such as the growth achieved by Vinogusto, I start thinking that there are internet entrepreneurs who have a kind of sixth sense and are capable of creating winner projects whatever they do. François Derbaix is one of those entrepreneurs who has made it with TopRural and is now helping this project succeed as an investor and advisor.

It’s worth taking a look at Vinogusto because i believe it’s a very good example of a social network with open content, where the users create value mostly through their comments. 100.000 user opinions in the community, a great example of what Jesus Encinar was describing the other day as businesses based on user opinions.

Another aspect that stands out is its simplicity, which in other words we call Usability, and that is the secret to gaining the involvement of basic users through their active participation in a web they find easy to use.

Beezzer is a project that started in Brazil and it offers its users the possibility to participate in or create communities that revolve around brands and products. The idea is very good, all of us are fans or followers of particular brands and we like to express our opinion about them whenever possible.

Beezzer allows users to create new groups around brands and other users can then join those groups providing comments, suggestions, uploading photos and videos. Each group has an administrator and the users become part of a ranking in function of their participation in the group.

A community like this should be very interesting for the brands. If a group formed around a brand is able to attract a good number of interested people, it could be proactively leveraged by the brand to get the first hand opinion of its most admiring customers, test out new products, etc.

Seen in wwwhatsnew

At the beginning of June, we exclusively presented Vi.vu and now we have come to know that Caja Navarra, through Eurecan, has invested 200.000 euros in the form of a participative loan.

It’s interesting that in the blog of Eurecan they talk about the confidence of the investors in the management team of the company, mentioning the names of Jorge Villabona, Jorge Maestre, Ignacio Parada, Humberto Matas and Joaquín Guirao (some of them from the management team of dnx), as the people in whom the entity has deposited its confidence.

This investment stands out, in my opinion, for the support that it brings to a pioneer project, a social network focused on the world of health and medicine, the kind of project that are having a lot of success in other countries, but for which we still don’t know if there is sufficient interest for users in Spain. With regards to this, Rodolfo Carpintier recently commented on his blog about projects of this kind and I guess that more investors would be interested in such initiatives.