Filtrbox, a startup for online brand monitoring and market intelligence that was part of the TechStars class of 2007, has announced that it closed a $1.4 million Series A funding round led by Flywheel Ventures and True Ventures at the end of last year. In conjunction with today’s funding announcement, the site is also launching an overhauled version of its main product,
Filtrbox G2.
The site allows users to monitor thousands of content sources, including blogs, Twitter, and FriendFeed. After inputting the terms they’d like to keep track of, Filtrbox can send them continuous updates, weeding out duplicates (you can also choose to receive periodic digests). Beyond typical metrics like relevance and how recently an article was published, Filtrbox can also gauge how relevant an article is by analyzing its source (obscure bloggers will have a lower priority than mainstream press).
The original version of the site launched in June 2008, and while the core functionality in the new version remains the same, it has a handful of notable improvements. Users with premium accounts (which cost $10/month) will now be able to monitor an unlimited number of search queries at the same time (previously there was a maximum limit of 25). Other new features include the ability to view results as graphs, export data for use in other programs, and collaboration tools that allow users to share search results, with granular privacy settings.
The site also offers a more basic free version, which has fewer features and restricts users to five simultaneous searches. Other players in this space include BuzzGain, which launched in January.
Do any of these companies make any real money?
Anjali Sen
Anjali Sen needs to be flagged as spam. Her (/his) only intent seem to be getting clicks for her ad-driven blog.
And Anjali, please do not embarrass poor Indian techies.
I second Anand. She’s been posting comments like spam.
They don’t ever have to make money. The VC’s goal is to sell them to some other company for tons of $ and then let them worry about profitability.
I don’t know if I’d call it spam but Anjali seems to be one of the first commenter on many posts – does she idly sit by and keep hitting refresh every 2 min on TC?
could you ban her ? seems to be commenting for the heck of it
nice service but even my own ego-search crawler picks up stories way faster than they do; not to mention that it misses a lot. at this point, i consider a backtype-like monitoring a little more helpful.
Seems to be having server issues? Maybe because of the post on TC? Could be useful. Time will tell how relevant the results are.
Editing to add: Buggy. Delete does not always work and the filter related to an article is sometimes wrong.
This is definitely useful for companies out there, but I wonder if Majority of companies would pay for such service (considering google alerts is free and recession with our economy) and if this is sustainable in the long run?
Is there an API available in order to integrate it into a CRM?
LEADSExplorer – yes, we have an API in development for just this kind of thing. Let me know if you are interested in discussing. ari at filtrbox.com
Would this compete with ‘professional’ outfits like Cymphony? http://www.cymfony.com/
kjhsad
Worth a try to test it, and then we’ll see how it compares to other systems.
can you mention the other systems, Im trying to get the pro and cons please
Sounds interesting. I have tried Google Alert few days ago. I’d like to compare both services.
I played with it a bit and it has potential. Although, I’d be looking for something a bit more sophisticated. It will be interesting to watch as these companies are able to integrate with other analytics in CRM and Web and show marketing ROI on social media efforts.
Flitrbox is 1000 times more comprehensive and useful then Google Alerts. Congrats to Ari and his team for the raise! This is one of my favorite products…
congratulations Ari, Tom, and team!