CrowdSound, which launched last week in a public beta, is the latest in a recent batch of web products to join the customer service space. Other contenders include UserVoice, SuggestionBox, GetSatisfaction, and SalesForce IdeaExchange.
The site offers an embeddable Digg-like widget that allows users to submit their suggestions, or to give a “thumbs up” or “down” to comments left by others. After leaving a suggestion, users can opt-in for email updates on the site’s progress. Site administrators can access a dashboard panel that lets them search through suggestions and to assign each with a progress label (”Under Review”, “Completed”, etc.).
The CrowdSound widget seems like it might be useful for small or medium sized companies, but the popularity system will run into problems on a bigger scale. Users will be forced to search through a large number of past suggestions to make sure theirs hasn’t already been created (the site tries to show previous relevant comments, but results are poor if you’ve chosen a different wording than someone else).
@Jason does a web app itself qualify as a startup? Cloudsound was created by an established development agency Intridea (www.intridea.com).
Barg/David/Michael great work…I look forward to playing with this one.
P
@Peter Corbett
Good catch, thanks. I actually knew that, I’m just used to writing about new startups all the time
@Jason
I hear you!
Sounds really similar to Skribit – http://www.skribit.com
it’s good to see a company from DC.
FeVote? Seriously, have you heard of that one yet? It’s been around maybe 2 years?
http://www.fevote.com/
Unlike some of those, it’s 100% free, has a great widget, but a better digg-like board.
http://www.yayboo.com also has a similar widget.
Too bad you can’t change the colors of the widget yet. Also the refund link has no content.
There’s also the free http://featurelist.org in this space.
There have been load of such Web applications (freeware or commercial ware) since 10 years ago, generally run as a sub-function of a Web site. Now these guys simply put such thin function into a dedicated web site, while they are not the first one to do so, they just put a cool name CrowdSound to voice as new Web 2.0 application.
Nice post Jason.
I have one question : What can I do so one of my web startups like LimeAll (http://www.LimeAll.com) could come on Techcrunch?
Regards,
Vijay
tried it, wasn’t to impressed
Well to describe intridea a start up would be completely “out of sync” in time…see this http://www.latticepurple.com . It is a start up of my friends in the same field and in direct competition with SalesForce Ideas – Robert