This is big: Wakoopa tracks web apps (but not YouPorn)

Written on 9th October 2008                                                                                                              11 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

You’ve probably heard of Wakoopa before, it is one of those names that make you think… What??? WaWhat? But afterwards you’ll remember it. It gets more tough when you have to explain what they do. Up until now Wakoopa has been a popular tool for the more technical gifted among us (formerly known as nerds) who use the service to track their software usage and to discover new software and games. Now Wakoopa broadens its audience to all web savvies by tracking web apps.

Should you buy that pro account or not?

The trend of desktop software finding web equivalents has started some years ago, and really catched on the last couple of months. The “Cloud” has become Buzzword no.1. Therefore it’s the obvious move for Wakoopa.

Let’s take a closer look at what this means. First of all, you’ll get insight in your own usage of several services. Are you as much on Twitter as you say you are? Should you buy a Flickr pro account? What is the social network you use the most? Wakoopa knows.

Transparency in the web app market

But wait, there’s more! If Wakoopa is able to get a critical mass, it will reflect the pulse of all popular and unpopular web apps. Nowadays, VC’s, journalists, and bloggers depend on the press releases of startups and crappy Alexa ratings to get an idea of how popular a service is. Wakoopa could be the ultimate resource to discover new hot web apps (and the ones that are heading straight for the deadpool).

Recommendation Engine

Furthermore, Wakoopa is working on an improved version of their recommendation engine. They’ve hired two recommendation experts to get this done. According to founder Wouter Broekhof the engine is already in the testing phase. With the new data flowing in from web apps they will be able to give personalized recommendation on the use of your software, for desktop as well as web applications.

Are they tracking porn sites as well?

A friend of mine recently admitted to only use Safari to fulfill his online adult needs. He also uses Wakoopa…, you do the math. When I heard Wakoopa started tracking web apps, I realized privacy-related issues would become even more relevant. Especially since your Wakoopa profile page shows up high in the search results. How do we know Wakoopa doesn’t track sites or web apps we rather keep private?

Well, to ease your mind: Wakoopa Lead Developer Menno van der Sman told me Wakoopa only tracks tools that are mentioned in Crunchbase, and they filtered out sites like YouPorn.

Disclosure: Wakoopa is our sponsor

alexa, software, the cloud, wakoopa, web apps, youporn

11 Comments »

Live.com: bigger than Google in September 2008

Written on 19th February 2008                                                                                                              12 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

Could it be? Could Live.com become a bigger web destination than Google.com? If you look at Alexa (Reach: Percentage of Internet users who visit Google and Live.com) it certainly seems so. Just recently Google had to give up its second place on the top 10 list of websites to Youtube but now it has been surpassed in rank even by Live.com and is currently number 4 on the list. As you can see I used a very unscientific method to predict the daily reach for both Google.com and Live.com and Live is clearly on the rise.

Not all data on Compete shows Live.com as the winner but this one (pages per visit) certainly does:

I know these numbers are debatable and are more indications of web traffic and usage but even so, this would have been unthinkable in November 2005 when Live.com launched. Google has long been considered the only viable search destination. My guess is that in 2008 more and more people will start considering alternatives such as Live.com, Yahoo.com and maybe even new players like ManagedQ which we profiled here earlier.

alexa, compete, google, live.com, top sites, youtube

12 Comments »