Archiving the Proper Information for Citizen Media
Search for all the information you have seen in one single place, independent from the sources.
About You
About You
First Name
Walter
Last Name
Palmetshofer
Twitter URL
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Archify.com
Organization Website
Organization Country
Austria
Country where this project is creating social impact
Is your organization a
Please select
How long has your organization been operating?
Less than a year
The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..
Innovation
Entry Form title
Archiving the Proper Information for Citizen Media
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Start-Up (a pilot that has just begun operating)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for less than a year
THE NEED: Describe the need for your solution and the size/dynamic of the community (ies) you will engage
We don’t have a photographic memory. We were all frustrated time and again because we could no longer find information we have seen on the web. What was it? Where was it? Who or what service led us to the information?
This is especially crucial for journalists, bloggers, and activists. Yes you can bookmark stuff, but you have to to it actively, every time and need to know the value of the information in the future at that moment. Also, it takes a lot of time to process essential information (pages, video, etc). So you spend a lot of time finding it, if possible at all, or missing out on information and facts, even if you know you have already seen it.
THE SOLUTION: Please explain what your solution offers and how it is innovative. How will you put your solution into the hands of users or beneficiaries? Be specific!
Archify is your photographic memory in the cloud. It keeps track of all your stuff and makes sure you find it again. Archify records and saves everything you have seen on the web (browsing history, storing Screen hots as you saw it and full text of that moment), and every update from your social streams (twitter, facebook, and not just yours, but all the friends/people you are connected to or which you are following) so you can find your stuff faster again!
Our vision is to become the personal archive of every stream and data you see or get in contact - on the web or anywhere else(independant from your device -PC, smartphone, tablet, etc.)
Archify helps journalists, bloggers, and knowledge workers in their work and research. It records automatically everything they have seen, so they can recall and tell their story.
THE MODEL: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference through use of information technology and media
This year, the Austrian Member to the European Parliament, Ernst Strasser, got caught on tape being corrupt and taking bribes. When the news broke about that story a political insider browsed all the possible candidates for the open position, and stumpled upon the website http://www.eu-triconsult.at, not paying attention to it at that time.
In the meantime, based on fear of creating a bad reputation for the conservative party, this site was completely removed from the web. Days later on the 22nd of March 2011, the successor to Pirker was officially announced and the official party line was that a new clean era starts with Pirker.
The insider remembered barely that there was also something “fishy about Pirker he had seen. Taking a look at his Archify account, he found the screenshot of Pirker’s now deleted website http://www.eu-triconsult.at (promoted “lobbying and special services”) in his archive (the screenshot and the text happened automatically in the background).
The result was over 2500 views of that shared screenshot, reports in the blogs, watchdog groups, various newspaper and national TV, and a starting debate about politicians, bribes, and lobbying in Austria.
In less than 10 seconds of sharing the screenshot on Archify, people were sending a tweet out to let the world know. http://www.egoarchive.com/share/gf4lc5
Unfortunately this didn’t lead to his resignation of Pirker, but that’s Austria and another story.
THE MARKETPLACE: Who are your peers and competitors? What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
To our knowledge, there is currently no direct competitors who combines all our services, just partly similar services like delicious (only bookmarking which you have to do manually), like dropbox (only search accounts, no webstream, no socialstream of friends) and evernote (you have to add each piece of information manually, so you need to know the value in advance).
None of them automatically takes a screenshot and grabs the media content (videos, audios). Our focus is the automatic archive.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
FOUNDING STORY: We want to hear about your “Aha!” moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution’s potential to change the world.
We always had the of problem finding the digital information we already have seen somewhere again...We just remembered fragments (like some parts of it, but not enough to find it again).
In Fall 2010 Gerald came up with the idea to tackle that problem, talked to Max and they both presented it at the Barcamp Vienna on 22nd November 2011 in front of 80 people to see what other people thought. They feedback was amazing and within 1 hour they got over 150 email addresses from people who wanted to get the problem solved. That 150 request was the initial moment we decided to start the development of the alpha prototype in January. Gerald, Max and Walter start quitting their jobs and are now working full time on that project since March.
Specify both the depth and scale of your solution’s social impact to date
Archify helps people handle digital information flow, finding stuff again across different information sources (webstream, twitter, facebook, youtube, etc.) with no expert knowledge or manual backup of that content.
What is your projected impact within the next 1-5 years? Is your idea replicable? If so, how?
We think we can get easily more than 100,000 users within 24 months (currently we have 3,000 users without any advertising & distribution).
Our idea is replicable, it’s also “not new” but it’s probably the first time it will be possible to do this in the near future for the average person.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and mark growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Six-Month Tasks
Task 1
New user interface & user experience, so it get’s even more intuitive and easier for the user to see, search and organize his in
Task 2
Launching Public beta version with translation in other language than English.
Task 3
Developing and launch the mobile Clients (Android and IOS).
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Providing an API allowing full access for the user, so he can also organize and share his data with with research partners, acti
12-Month Tasks
Task 1
Concept development
Task 2
Coding & feedback
Task 3
Better user interface, user experience
How many people have been impacted by your project?
1,001 - 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
Sustainability
Explain how your company, program, service or product is structured
Business
What barriers have hindered the success of your project to date? How do you plan to overcome these and other challenges as you grow your solution?
There are no real barriers, we are making great progress and show excellent execution (check out our demo). Funding would be really helpful to speed up our development – to pay for more developers and especially designers (since we are techies). Once the beta is launched, we will start charging for corporate customers (premium accounts) for our service in order to support us.
How do you see the information-technology and media sectors shifting over the next decade? How will your solution adapt to and/or drive that changing environment?
Huge paradigm shifts are happening already and will continue to happen. Crowdsourcing, decline of costs, bigger information flow – although not always quality increase, there is a willingness to pay.
We we are on the frontier combing those streams, helping smaller teams and individuals with lower budgets, or less time, and maybe less technological background to find their stuff in one single place.
Failure is not always an option. If your solution fails to gain traction in the next two years, what other applications of the idea could you explore?
That idea / service is so easy and at the same time also complex that we hear constant new meaningful, practical cases and ways from our beta-users and how they use it.
Expand on your selections, explaining how you will sustain funding
Grant applications are running in Austria (1st will be announced on the 18th October), others should follow, in the future we make money by charging for business and corporate accounts. Individuals and non-profit are getting free service.
Tell us about your partnerships
We are partnering currently with Universities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland to develop, and partnering with journalists and bloggers, as well as the new media scene in Austria to get the feedback what the need is exactly. Currently we are in Denmark for Development at www.startupbootcamp.com Copenhagen.
What type of team (staff, volunteers, etc.) will ensure that you achieve the growth milestones identified in the Social Impact section?
Our staff, our friends, partners, users for feedback– it’s a really combined approach.
Changemakers is a collaborative and supportive space. Please specify any community resources you would need to grow and sustain your initiative. Select all that apply
Investment, Human resources or talent, Marketing or media, Research or information, Collaboration or networking, Pro-bono help (legal, financial, etc.), Innovation or ideas, Mentorship.
Specify any resources you might offer to support other initiatives. Select all that apply
Human resources or talent, Research or information, Collaboration or networking, Innovation or ideas.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren’t specified within the list
We are really good on the technical side, our team has more than 60 years of hardcore IT background and experience in media activism.
Winning the prize would be really helpful for use in supporting a developer, also for spreading the news about it, getting feedback and the exact needs of the activists, Changemakers, users, organization and new ideas for the tool.
Summary
Define your company, program, service or product in 1-2 short sentences
Archify records everything you have seen on the web, and every update in your social streams to tell your story & history.
Identify what is innovative about your solution in 1-2 short sentences
Search for all the information you have seen in one single place, independent from the sources.
 | 35 weeks agoWalter Palmetshofer submitted this idea. |
