Google launches non profit portal, and I think we'll do something similar

Not 100% the same, of course, but working with non profits is a fantastic idea. Google is one of the companies I personally admire a lot for their philanthropic efforts, their "do no evil" philosophy, and their employee programs.

Of course, we don't have nearly the same level of resources, but we're planning on doing something for non profit organizations on FunAdvice. Why? Well, for one, it's the right thing to do - proactively getting involved in helping spread the message of companies who lack resources, are trying to improve the planet, society and the human condition just feels right.

As we get bigger, so too will our own philanthropic efforts go. I'd like to think that given a choice between various similar services, the one that will win (eg, be the biggest, generate the most revenue, etc) will be the one that does the most for the community.

Club Penguin, for example, was giving away 10% of it's profits to charities...they were making a mint by all accounts and didn't have to do that. However even when they negotiated & sold to Disney, they insisted that the donation program continue. That is applause worthy in my book, and something to aspire to. Even in the face of the biggest pay day for the Club Penguin team they might ever obtain they stuck to their principles and goals.

Bravo.

Once we get to where the entire team (not just two full time & two part time employees) can be supported by the FunAdvice business, we plan on doing even more. However, I'm excited that soon we'll be taking our first big step towards our amitious goal of helping worthy non profits reach people and raising awareness for their missions.

Amazon's Askville decides that SEO is the way to go

What else would you call this URL format?
http://askville.amazon.com/36329/SEOTopic.do?tag=electronics

:)

I rest my case.

Tags: askville, is it spam, or is it just good promotion?

Q&A Space: who's winning, who's losing, and why it matters

First, let me say that a picture is worth a thousand words:


Ok, that done, consider the following:
1) Sodahead = raised 4.25 million in Funding.
2) Yedda = raised 2.5 million, had 20 people on staff, and beat us out to get acquired by AOL last year for a rumored 15-20 million.
3) Wis.dm raised 5 million in funding.
4) Minti.com raised 1.5 million in funding.

So the average here is somewhere around a few million dollars to do...what, exactly? Our team is 7 people: 2 full time, 3 part time, and two "occassional" (aka, the other owners than me who help, but not on a regular, routine basis).

Is Mike Arrington listening? Nope. (and as an FYI, I did have a personal introduction email sent to him by his business parter, who copied me on it as well).

Do you here me, Pete Cashmore? Nope. And the number of times I've written (3) and commented (dozens) on their continued coverage of sites like these (above) that are doomed to failure, AND they continue to ignore us, when our business model is working & traffic, visitors, and engagement are all taking off...well, it's odd. :)

Did GigaOm want to say something? Nope, and I even had him on the phone for about a half hour. He still didn't give us the time of day in any of his write ups.

Why oh why is it that we get ignored? FunAdvice is in the top 5 Q&A sites in the world. We don't work together, all in the same office so between our virtual collaboration AND lack of investment capital, isn't it an amazing story? Yep.

Couple that with our commitment to making the world a better place, FunAdvice is a business like no other in our category. Every larger Q&A site is part of a publicly traded firm, OR larger parent co with hundreds of millions in investment capital.

Our story is unique, compelling and getting more interesting. However, if you want to read a story like this, you CAN'T read it at places like TechCrunch, Mashable, or GigaOM. G4: Attack of the Show even gave us some air time ;) A dozen or more radio stations have also given us some air time.

However, leading blogs & other print publications apparently believe we aren't press worthy. Sigh.

Quantcast agrees: we're at a million uniques a month

Of course, the real number for US uniques last month was 1.15 million, but I've noticed that QuantCast has gotten closer the bigger we've become.

http://www.quantcast.com/funadvice.com

Their estimate puts us at the 2,722 largest site in the US. Awesome. Well, we're even bigger than that (their estimates don't match their dashboard data, eg, they haven't updated the top site number list yet).

Ah, and for the 'bowl of cheese' guy, this is funadvice:
FunAdvice US. Click the link & off you go ;)

Pity: Compete hasn't updated their Feb data yet.