Parallel

Early Adopter Recruiting Startup BetaBait Helps Users Show Their Love For Apps. BetaBait, the startup that helps new apps and services find beta testers, is introducing new features today that should give those testers more control of the experience — and give BetaBait more opportunity to make money.

BetaBait doesn’t quite serve the same function as a service like LaunchRock — it’s less about managing the beta testing process and more about finding the users you need for those tests. So it’s to cultivating an audience of early adopters, who either receive an email with a list of new startups looking for testers or search the site for products that interest them. The company offers startups a chance to receive a more prominent placement on the email by sponsoring it. 7 Disruptive Innovations That Turned Their Markets Upside Down [INFOGRAPHIC] Who are the movers, the shakers, the companies that affect profound change?

And what products do they bring to market that disrupt all others, making other companies completely re-think their strategies? Let's take a look at seven of those products whose competitors wish had never existed. That's what we'll find out with this infographic by professional networking site Focus.com. You'll see how 7 companies such as Skype, Netflix, Apple and Google rolled out products and services that approached their market in such a unique way that they changed everything. Besides those usual suspects, there are a few surprises in the group, too — products that lowered prices, approached their markets in unheard-of ways, even created new markets — and changed the world. Infographic courtesy Focus.com. Why We Pin It? Takeaway Lessons from Pinterest. Pinterest is now the third largest social network. It's ahead of both Linkedin and Google+, as measured by number of users, according to a new report from Experian. Its rapid success has led to a proliferation of clones.

Will any of them come anywhere close to garnering the same attention? If they do, it won’t be because they just copycatted Pinterest, it will be because they understood and integrated the same formula for success. Let’s take a closer look at 6 key factors driving the success of one of today’s largest social networks: 1) Continuous Involvement – Most social networks have you create a profile and once you’re done filling out your basic sign-up data that’s literally the end of the engagement process. 2) Self Expression – On the surface Pinterest appears to be just about pining individual pictures to boards. 3) Social Feedback Loop – Pinterest creates a positive feedback loop where if you post something great it can easily go viral.

Connect: Beyond Facebook: The Rise Of Interest-Based Social Networks. Editor’s Note: This guest post is written by Jay Jamison, a Partner at BlueRun Ventures, who focuses on early stage mobile, consumer and enterprise investments. He also serves on the boards of AppCentral, AppRedeem, Foodspotting, and Thumb. You can follow Jay on Twitter @jay_jamison or read his blog at www.jayjamison.com. With the pending public offering of Facebook anticipated to be the largest tech IPO in history, it’s an interesting time to think about where we go from here. Some say “social is done,” Facebook is all the social media anyone would ever want or need. Unquestionably, as it nears one billion accounts, in the solar system of social media, Facebook is the Sun — the gravitational center around which everything social revolves.

Social Network for Social Media Marketers: This Week in Social Media. Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news.

Instant opinions. Real people. Is This the Best Startup Launch Video Ever? A dollar a month for razors, shipped to your door?

Most thrifty guys and gals who wield a blade in the bathroom won't need much convincing that that's a good idea for a startup. But how to ensure that they hear about it, and that they have enough confidence in the company to sign up? Simple: create a funny YouTube video — one with so much swagger, sight gags and bear costumes that it seems poised to go viral. That's the apparent strategy behind Dollar Shave Club, a startup from LA-based Incubator Science. The company just scored its first $1 million in funding from heavyweight VCs including Andreesen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. Dollar Shave Club is the brainchild of Michael Dubin, the suave guy explaining the concept. Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money. When we started building Flow, it was to scratch an itch.

We were frustrated with having to use three different apps to manage our daily workflow, so we decided to build a solution ourselves. It took three of us nine months to go from napkin to reality. We were close, efficient, and most importantly, cheap. How To Create A Minimum Viable Product. Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Emre Sokullu, founder and chief architect of GROU.PS There’s been a lot of talk on the concept of minimum viable product lately, but not much has been written on how to actually implement one.

Having gone through the process of developing one of the earliest social software mashups (GROU.PS) in PHP six years ago, and LoveBucks, a node.js Javascript app that is the Facebook “Like” Button for online content monetization (both alone), I want to describe to you a little bit what has really changed in web application development in recent years and the beauty of minimum viable product. Why We Pin It? Takeaway Lessons from Pinterest. Wolkwer Inc.