It has been almost a year I have started HyveUp. The first interview, Lawrence Coburn, Founder of RateItAll, accepted to do it. in a way, he was my first victim. Today, I believe the videos HyveUp offers are of a much better quality, even though it still needs improvements (sound, light, music, screencasts). Doing videos for Web 2.0 startups is a constant learning process, as there isn't any books written on how to do promotional videos for Web 2.0 startups.
Now that I am at least able to deliver punchier videos, I thought it was time to dust out some old videos and give them a fresh face lift to keep them attractive to the eye. I am starting with RateItAll. RateItAll is a consumer rating engine that lets users rate everything. The idea is that RateItAll lets users create rating channels, like my favorite beers, the most boring movies, the sexiest first ladies, or the best Web 2.0 sites.
Once a user has created a list of items (a "Weblist"), RateItall offers different tools to help list creators reach out to an audience as large as possible.
First, RateItAll is a social network all to itself. Users can connect, share lists and rate each others' items. Popular reviewers get premium visibility on the latest reviews page and on the top most helpful reviewers' list.
Second, RateItAll offers widgets to enable users to export the RateItAll Weblists outside of RateItAll's walls. As you can see in the screencast demo, the slick flash widget fits in any blog post or Website's sidebar. Since recently, you can place a rating widget on Myspace and add the Review application on Facebook.
For the Web money-makers, RateItAll also shares its ad-based revenues with its users. So if you create compelling lists, and know how to make them popular enough to gain visibility in the RateItAll community, then you are on to get a slice of the pie.
Update 06/19/08: The same day I released this article, RateItAll raised $800K of funds to pursue the development of their rating engine.
