History
Protagonize is an online community and self-publishing platform, launched in December, 2007 by creator Nick Bouton as a home for Choose Your Own Adventure-style branching stories. [9] [10] Shortly after launch, the site began to allow for linear narrative as well, and has since expanded to include poetry, screenplays, and other forms of literature.
Following its subsequent growth, there has been an increasing focus on the community aspect of the site, with features such as groups and writing circles being added. [11]
In June 2008 Protagonize was selected as a finalist in the 2008 Canadian New Media Awards for "Excellence in Social Media Websites". [12]
In June 2009 Protagonize was one of seven local BC startups chosen to demo at Launch Party Vancouver 7 as part of the Startup Most Likely to Succeed competition. [13] [14]
At least one published book started out life as a story on Protagonize. [15] [16]
On June 3, 2017, Protagonize closed down due to stagnant user growth and declining revenue from advertising and donations. [8]
Magnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003. It only sold music for download through its website but added a print-CD-on-demand service in late 2004 and in October 2007 began selling complete albums and individual tracks through Amazon.com. In May 2008, Magnatune launched all-you-can-eat membership plans. From March 2010 Magnatune dropped the CD printing service and moved exclusively to all-you-can-eat membership plans. Magnatune was the first record label to license music online and as of May 2015 had sold over 7,000 licenses in its twelve years of existence.
User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion forums and wikis. It is a product consumers create to disseminate information about online products or the firms that market them.
Darius A. Monsef IV is an internet entrepreneur & philanthropist known most widely as the founder of the design community COLOURlovers and co-founder & board member of the All Hands Volunteers international charitable organization. As an alumnus of Y Combinator and mentor with 500 Startups & PIE PDX, Monsef is an active participant in the internet startup community. He is also the author of the book Color Inspirations, published in 2011 by F+W Media and was named a "Design Visionary to Watch" by House Beautiful Magazine.
Google Workspace is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet and Chat for communication; Currents for employee engagement; Drive for storage; and the Google Docs Editors suite for content creation. An Admin Panel is provided for managing users and services. Depending on edition Google Workspace may also include the digital interactive whiteboard Jamboard and an option to purchase add-ons such as the telephony service Voice. The education edition adds a learning platform Google Classroom and today has the name Workspace for Education.
Pownce was a free social networking and micro-blogging site started by Internet entrepreneurs Kevin Rose, Leah Culver, and Daniel Burka. Pownce was centered on sharing messages, files, events, and links with friends. The site launched on June 27, 2007, and was opened to the public on January 22, 2008. On December 1, 2008, Pownce announced that it had been acquired by blogging company Six Apart, and that the service would soon shut down. It was subsequently shut down on December 15, 2008.
italki is an online language learning platform which connects language learners and teachers through video chat. The site allows students to find online teachers for 1-on-1 tutoring, and teachers to earn money as freelance tutors. italki is headquartered in Hong Kong, China.
Nexopia is a Canadian social networking website created in 2003, by Timo Ewalds. It was designed for ages 14 and up, but was later lowered to 13. Users are able to create and design profiles, a friends list, blogs, galleries, and compose articles and forums. Interaction is accomplished through an internal personal messaging system, public user comments on profiles, blogs or through threads and posts on the forums. In November 2012, Nexopia was acquired by digital ad network Ideon Media.
Ficlets was a non-commercial AOL community website dedicated to publishing and archiving ficlets, which are similar to flash fiction. It was founded on 31 October 2006 by Kevin Lawver, although it did not become fully operational until early to mid-March 2007. On 6 June 2008, Lawver severed his employment from AOL and, in turn, departed as system administrator for Ficlets. No new administrator was announced to replace Lawver, leaving the respective duties for the site unmaintained.
Wix.com Ltd. is an Israeli software company, publicly listed in the US, that provides cloud-based web development services. It allows users to create HTML5 websites and mobile sites through the use of online drag and drop tools. Along with its headquarters and other offices in Israel, Wix also has offices in Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Poland, the Netherlands, the United States, Ukraine, and Singapore.
Wattpad is a free online platform that allows users to read and publish original stories. In January 2021, Naver Corporation announced that it would be acquiring Wattpad; the deal was completed in May 2021. As of November 2021, Wattpad has a monthly audience of more than 90 million users, who can directly interact with the writers and share their opinions with fellow readers.
Behance is a social media platform owned by Adobe whose main focus is to showcase and discover creative work.
Wall.fm is an online service for people to build and host social networking services, powered by Oxwall software. Wall.fm allows users over 18 years old to register a free account and create custom social networking websites. The site creation process does not involve any coding, and consists of only two steps. The distinctive Wall.fm features are user roles, customizable themes, activity newsfeed, website/profile/content privacy, monetization pack. One of its main competitive advantages is that the service is built on an open source platform, which means a certain degree of freedom for site owners. Wall.fm offers three plans: Starter, Pro and Ultimate. Plans offer different feature sets, disk space and bandwidth, individual support and vendor's branding removal. Every plan offers free trial.
Eventbrite is an American event management and ticketing website. The service allows users to browse, create, and promote local events. The service charges a fee to event organizers in exchange for online ticketing services, unless the event is free.
500px is a global online photo-sharing platform that is a subsidiary of Visual China Group. It is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was co-founded by Oleg Gutsol and Evgeny Tchebotarev on October 31, 2009.
9gag is an online platform and social media website based in Hong Kong, which allows its users to upload and share user-generated content or other content from external social media websites. Since the platform for collections of Internet memes was launched on April 11, 2008, it has grown in popularity across social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
FundRazr is a free crowdfunding and online fundraising platform released in 2009. FundRazr operates internationally in 35+ counties with the largest markets being United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. It allows users to run a wide-range of crowdfunding campaigns by creating fundraising pages and sharing it via social media, messaging apps, email and more to raise money for over 100 types of causes such as nonprofit, medical care, education, community help, poverty alleviation, arts, memorials, and animal rescue causes. FundRazr also works with more than 4000 nonprofits, charities and social enterprises with an advanced fundraising toolset for free. The digital fundraising platform provides 8 different campaign types. They include microproject fundraising, peer-to-peer campaigns, wishlist campaigns, recurring donations, branded sponsorship campaigns, DIY projects, sweepstake campaigns, and storefront campaigns.
Treehouse or (Teamtreehouse) is an online technology school that offers beginner to advanced courses in web design, web development, mobile development and game development. Its courses are aimed at beginners looking to learn computer coding skills for a career in the tech industry.
Growth hacking is a subfield of marketing focused on the rapid growth of a company. It is referred to as both a process and a set of cross-disciplinary (digital) skills. The goal is to regularly conduct experiments, which can include A/B testing, that will lead to improving the customer journey, and replicate and scale the ideas that work and modify or abandon the ones that do not, before investing a lot of resources. It started in relation to early-stage startups that need rapid growth within a short time on tight budgets, and also reached bigger corporate companies.
LinkedIn Learning is an American online learning platform. It provides video courses taught by industry experts in software, creative, and business skills. It is a subsidiary of LinkedIn. All the courses on LinkedIn fall into four categories: Business, Creative, Technology, and Certifications.
Mark Hurst is a journalist, author, broadcaster, game designer, and Internet entrepreneur. He founded the GEL tech conference, and hosts a weekly technology-focused radio program, Techtonic, on WFMU. He is the author of two books about technology — one focused on information overload, the other on building customer-friendly products.
