Stealth Startup Goop to Launch
Michael Arrington
66 comments »
Rumors about Palo Alto based stealth startup Goop have been buzzing for weeks now. A standard landing page accepting email submissions for beta testing is now up, and some information has been leaked about the company.
CEO Peter Gibbons (previously at Initech, a TPS automation company) gave me a walk through of the product earlier today, April 1, 2006. Goop certainly has the next generation web 2.0 features needed to compete with the more established players. And the whopping $30 million financing from prominent angel investor Josh Kopelman should give it enough staying power to attract the 20,000 or so email addresses it needs to be acquired by one of the big guys.
The core feature set includes a fully interactive 3D social tagging environment, first rate cut and paste bookmarklets, and with an Ajax/Flash rich interface with rounded corners and easy-on-the-eyes pastels. Also, RSS feeds are available for all FAQs.
The most interesting aspects of the service, however, are a number of del.icio.us/flickr-like features to allow anyone to create their own topic-based version of the main service, create a mashup with any XUL or LUX interface and prominently display the results to users on a Soap based platform with fully closed APIs. At this time, the service is available for download on the Mac platform only, using the Internet Explorer browser. Sign up for the closed beta here. Goop is a winner.
Update: This is my favorite so far today.
HaHa. almost got me…must be April 1st.
I heard it also features the google maps api for easy geo-social-tagging of all invite only web 2.0 events.
I hope to bring some competition to Goop with a soon to be released service that allows anyone to create rss-based apps via microformats. I call it “Aggregootr” …
April 1st seems to be going strong this year.
“…should give it enough staying power to attract the 20,000 or so email addresses it needs to be acquired by one of the big guys.”
Ha ha, took me a second there. April Fools!
hahaha and the TPS thing - Make sure your TPS report has a cover page!
I don’t get it.
Peter, It’s true, there is an excellent mashup with Google Maps as well.
I like the idea of aggregootr - there is a strong need for creation of rss apps via microformats. It seems like a niche market now, but so did yahoo when it first launched.
Michael, I shall reference your comment when I meet with potential investors next week.
On a side note, imagine the dismay of the pour soul who was actually working on 3d social bookmarking or tagging…
Nice one… best startup launch I’ve read today.
Got me. Well done.
Hook, line, sinker
Nice one
You had me until the Mac/IE part. It must be late.
Very clever, I’m enjoying April Fools this year - some very clever web things going on. Particularly appreciated Google’s Romance.
Dang - got me!
Man - swindled!
Good one.. one of the more creative efforts today!
I was “wtf’ing” for a while and then I remembered. Nicely done
Hey, uh.. Peter… I’m uh… going to need you to come in on, ah.. Saturday and, ah… start a new Web 2.0 company.
…Yeah thanks… that’s great.
Funy stuff but, still seems real !!! With Web 2.0 eveyr day looks like April 1st !!!!
Failure to have the courage to leave the actual date out of the body of the write up is disappointing. Otherwise - brilliant.
I’m an idiot.
Yeah, I’m a fool!
Any follow on rounds available?
where’s my beta invite?
I would’ve have known if u said the VC was a swede named Loof Lirpa.
Got me….
Hey what’s the privacy policy for that email list?
Gullible Geeks - an intrusive marketer’s dream come true - $25 per name
..signup for the closed beta!
3D bookmarking? Ha, that’s as passe as Web 2.0. I’ve been working on 4D bookmarking for the past week, and should be able to push 5D bookmarking into Alpha.
Sheesh.. You got me until I saw the new URL in the title bar!
Happy April Fools
I’ve bookmarked this with WideURL: http://wideurl.com/aitch-tee-t.....hree-slash
Um, yeah. I worked with the CEO Peter Gibbons at Initech and I’ve gotta tell you, this guys is bad news. Investors - stay away from Goop.
So… I’m the only one that got a real invitation to Goop?
http://www.hevre.co.il/images/.....438615.swf
They have a competitor named POOP.
Nice try Michael… Unfortunately there’s a real goop.com and its based in Atlanta
Registrant:
Vausenet
570 Piedmont Ave, N.E.
Atlanta, Ga 30308
US
Their website is not up yet but in a telephone conversation, Vausenet promised to be fully Web 2.0 compliant by the end of this week, and to have the 3D interface up before the end of April. Then they’ll implement a web2.0suck feature where the user will be sucked into the interface through their screen and be forced to interact with all the other April 1st fools days users who got suckered into believing this prank, ahaha
Dammit.. you got me.. E-mail harvester!!!
got me!
Just so everyone knows, no emails are actually being collected.
Hehe, fooled me until I saw http://64.34.165.73/fool/
Good one, but this one is the
real deal.
Just so everyone knows, Email Harvester is *definitely* collecting your email addresses, AND selling them to evil corporations.
for me, sqlonrails.org for the win today.
I heard that Goop also got funding from a Web 2.0 venture capital firm called VenturFundr, a “social venture capital” firm where investments are made depending on votes by its community members.
Nice joke.
As I was reading this. I became sick. This whole web2.0 thing is makes me very Nauseous. Then I realized from the first comment it was a joke.
Phew!
Where did my email address go??
You got my Automatic Web 2.0 beta app sign-up bot.
It’s set to sign up for everything that shows up on TechCrunch. Too bad I hadn’t programmed it to ignore April 1, 2006.
Can I have my email address back now please?
damn. got me too. aaahhhhhhhhh…
well done. got me… i realized it the very moment i clicked submit. damn.
that went as well as good be expected … goop’d me!
what the heck does goop do???
Git me up until the Mac only IE only line
Jajjaja! Got me!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHHHHHHAAAAAA!!!
Well done — maybe I can hit Josh K up for $50m for my next startup…
[...]It seems as if Web 2.0 was the butt of a lot April fools jokes this weekend. Here are a few that I came across.[...]
POOP is one of their competitors!
30 million seed round from Kopelman? come on guys.
oops - got me - even signed up to be notified.
- Clay
got me, last time i browse without my morning coffeeeeeee
Hahaha )))