College students now have their own Yammer. Last week, Wiggio came out of beta with a new look and a slew of group messaging and group management features. For each private group that you create, Wiggio provides a Twitter-like message stream from all the group members. But it also includes a slew of other features such as a shared calendar, mass text and voice messaging, file-sharing (including online docs and spreadheets), polling, and more.
Many of these features can be found in other products such as Yammer, Basecamp, WizeHive, and Producteev. But Wiggio is a solid addition to the group messaging family, and it is already gaining some traction by targeting college students and their particular group dynamics (academic, extracurricular, social, committees, sports teams, music/dance, religious, charity, etc.). Wiggio, which has been in closed beta for a year, already has 45,000 users, about 80 percent of which are college students and faculty members.
The site was created in January, 2008 by Dana Lampert, who was then a senior at Cornell. His two co-founders are Rob and Derek Doyle, sons of Bob Doyle, the creator of MacPublisher (the first desktop publishing program) and the 1970s electronic game Merlin. The elder Doyle is an adviser and investor in Wiggio, and houses the four-person startup in his lab a block away from Harvard. Wiggio raised $450,000 in an angel round last August.
The site offers following features:
- Shared calendar (with SMS reminders)
- Folder (includes group editing of docs and spreadsheets, photo sharing, video)
- Mass text and voice messaging
- Free conference calling and web meetings
- Polling
- List-serv
Groups can be created by simply adding people’s email. They don’t even have to sign up. Wiggio hooks into existing text messaging and email services. You can email an entire group, take group polls, import calendars, share documents, links, photos, videos, and other files. Wiggio uses Zoho and Scribd for shared document viewing and editing, and has partnered with Rondee for the teleconferencing. All the other features were developed in-house.
Lampert has several ideas for making money, including display ads targeted by group type and university, SMS ads, and subscriptions for additional customization and security features.
Here are a couple intro videos and screenshots:
I have noticed that every other post on Techcrunch is either about Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, or Google.
Thanks. We do our best!
This one is about Wiggio. What’s your point?
I think his point is that TC has become a “TwitterCrunch”. All you guys cover are FB, Twitter, FF and its clones.
I have to admit that I’m kinda tired of this stuff myself.
Any fool can install a Twitter clone and run a service like that. Where’s the novelty in that?!
How is this not a “me three” product?
I am finding fewer and fewer exciting new sites these days … perhaps an inevitable result of the tech bust?
Anjali Sen
http://smartbab...xy.blogspot.com
We’ve been using Wiggio for the past couple of weeks this semester for classes and organizing clubs and it’s been surprising more effective than using Google Groups and Basecamp in the college setting. Have the extra add-ons like mass SMS messaging and polling have made it solid for collaborating across schedules and it’s integrated with Zoho docs which makes editing revisions. It doesn’t make sense for most of my classes this semester, because I’m not really doing much project work (and I’m mostly on iCal/BlackBerry for that stuff), but makes sense for organizing things in the 10-15 people clubs I’m in where everyone has super divergent schedules.
Pretty slick app. Nice work stringing the functionality together in a simple UI.
I love Wiggio! This site is AMAZING. I highly recommend it to anyone who works in groups!
Astroturfing (v) – Astroturfing is the artificial creation of a grassroots buzz for a product, service or political viewpoint. Commercially-motivated astroturfing is called “astroturf marketing.” Astroturf marketing has a negative connotation, primarily because disreputable marketers have used deceptive tactics to build their buzz by taking advantage of the anonymity the Internet provides.
Astroturf marketers typically use blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, vlogs, chat rooms and social media Web sites like MySpace when building an artificial buzz. Deceptive astroturf marketing techniques include impersonating someone in the targeted demographic, creating an entirely fictional character (called a meat puppet) that’s meant to appear to others to be a real person.
ha.
yep i agree. and it is so obviously that is what this person is doing. omg this product is the best product since slice bread lol
…since slice bread? lol
since microwave
since voicemail
since porn on the internet
I have seen this Wiggio but i have to say that i think it is not so interesting
The color theme on that site makes baby jesus cry.
I think you’re looking for the phrase: “it makes your eyes bleed.”
http://www.urba...y%20jesus%20cry
Make baby jesus cry. LOL. I love it.
When all is said and done, there is a lot of effort into developing what is functionally an irc channel.
has anyone else come to this conclusion?
no.
Does Wiggio’s features (e.g. conference call, text messaging) work for groups/users outside the US?
I love Wiggio. I have been using it for the last six months for all of my classes and sports teams. It provides all of the functionality of all the other websites into one. Simply put this site is an absolute diamond in the rough.
Obvious Astroturfing
http://en.wikip...ki/Astroturfing
I like Wiggio. The various methods of communication and collaboration that they offer cover a lot of ground when it comes to school projects.
Certainly is a tremendous site they’ve got going here. Being a little bit older and less technologically savvy I often find myself outdated by such group collaboration websites. But this Wiggio just made it so easy for me to use. TRULY SUPERLATIVE.
This certainly is a lame astroturfing campaign that Wiggio has got going here. They clearly are a little bit older and less savvy and can’t tell that no real people write comments like this on Tech Crunch. TRULY LAME!
http://en.wikip...ki/Astroturfing
We’ve been using Wiggio on our projects and its been working out great. Super simple.
I’ve used Wiggio since its inception and it has proved and invaluable tool for making groups I’ve been involved with more productive and efficient. I would recommend that everyone sign up and give it a try!
I’ve used Wiggio since it was first launched over a year ago. The website has definitely improved a lot since then. Anyone who works in groups for college class projects should give this service a try at the very least.
For example, I worked in a couple of groups last semester where Wiggio was used. It definitely helped us to be more productive, organized and made sharing documents/ ideas simple. The fact that documents can now be edited in real time is awesome and I’m looking forward to using them again for other group projects that are coming up this semester.
Wow! Wiggio is the greatest thing since… blah blah!
If their product is 1/10th as good as their bogus attempt to create Buzz on TechCrunch then it must be amazing!
http://en.wikip...ki/Astroturfing
Has anyone else noticed the obvious attempt to create a fake buzz for this company in the comments?
Come on TechCrunch community, you can’t let this fly.
Wiggio = Astroturf
http://en.wikip...ki/Astroturfing
Wiggio has been an enormous asset to me and my organization. It’s helped tremendously in organizing my recipes, plus my shirts have never been whiter. With Wiggio I never have to remember to record my favorite shows or send mothers’ day gifts. I recommend it much more than mint.com, amazon, or ebay.
I’d be curious if the last 6 comments all had the same IP
.
I’ve been watching the Wiggio website since it’s early days. They have put a lot of thought into it. The site is good now and it’s just going to keep getting better.
I’ve been watching this lame Astroturfing campaign since it’s early days. The have put a lot of thought into it. This astroturf campaign is lame now and it’s just going to keep getting lamer.
http://en.wikip...ki/Astroturfing
Pretty clever response, Jim. Well done! I’m not an automated post-bot, but I can see your point.
But is has been fun to learn about astroturfing via these comments!
Wiggio sucks, you heard it here first. Astroturfing sucks too.
Pathetic.
This is an incredible tool. It seemed hard out of the box, but once we plunged in and got a rhythm going, it simply exploded! I’ve never been this satisfied with any other package!
What’s up with all these fake comments about Wiggio? Sad…
Honesty and a great product usually work better than fake buzz using marketing-speak.
What if Wiggio isn’t astroturfing at all? What if this is a diabolical plot by Wiggio’s sworn enemies to make it seem like they are astroturfing in order to create negative buzz among the influentials who are quick to pounce on such obvious attempts to curry favor?
What if this comment was an attempt by Wiggio to deflect the negative attention they’re sure to get from astroturfing?
What if this comment is an attempt by Wiggio’s detractors to deflect the negative attention they would get if the negative attention Wiggio is getting for allegedly astroturfing is revealed to be a double-cross atroturfing campaign by said detractors?
What if… never mind!
Wiggio is a pathetic ripoff of other ripoffs. It’s basically crap on a stick.
I think we can safely add wiggio to the deathpool… these guys won’t last past July.
I think perhaps you’re being a bit too harsh on them. If they can provide an actual functional alternative to Blackboard and it’s ilk then more power to them. I’d personally love to see Blackboard die a horrible horrible death.
I’m loving the “astro-turfing” responses.
Hahaha!
Yeah, stop writing about iphones and twitters and google, and write more about dark horse startups like Etsy, or old web companies like BlueFly.com
Get real fellas…the app sucked six months ago but I took a look at it again because I was in disbelief TC covered it – actually pretty compelling. If Wiggio can continue to improve the app at this rate, they stand to leave blackboard and myriad of others in their dust. There’s a whole market of non profits and small bus that could find alot of interesting ways to utilize an app they don’t need to learn. Watch out for Wiggio…
I’ve been using Wiggio for over fifteen years now and all I have to say is that it is a wonderful service.
Wiggio saved my baby!
I packed up all my spare gold Jewelery and sent it to Wiggio. In just three days they sent me back $400 in cash money. Thanks Wiggio!
you people are super lame for even knowing what astroturfing even MEANS or however the f you spell it, and probably lamer for spending more time replying to threads on this to determine whether or not some other website is worth it instead of having your lazy asses go on the actual website and try for yourselves. i am not astroturfing (whatever i can’t even be bothered to scroll up and look for the word spelling) but wiggio is actually really useful and effective so you crazies can keep arguing about poor color choice or lack of innovation… in the meant time, it’s working and growing!
I love how everyone thinks good comments are astroturfing. You nerds need to get outta your mom’s basements and check yourself. Wiggio is a good site plain and simple. Much better than any of your blogs…. la la la loosseerrsss
I’m confused. Why is any comment that’s positive considered astroturfing (or whatever it’s called – who coins those stupid phrases?)
Is no one allowed to say anything positive? If 45,000 people signed up, there must be something useful there.
I just got a mailbomb for Wiggio through my University email account. Apparently they’re trolling for university addresses.
I might have considered using them before that. Boo.
Those bastards mailbombed me, too.
I don’t even live in my parent’s basement.
Now I know how it feels to be raped…
calm down everyone. This is a serious inquiry – can people tell me the difference between blackboard and Wiggio – what are the pros and cons between the two, why is Blackboard better / worse than wiggio and visa versa.
Dont beat me please this is legit.
Hello All!
Not Wigio, please change the Yammer…
Yammer is a great product that has ability to improve communications and create transparency by virtually making company’s structure flat. I work for LADevelopers Inc. (http://www.ladevelopers.com) a California based software development firm. We specialize in custom Yammer solutions for enterprise and know this product inside out. Please contact us if you need any help with it.