A startup called Wiggio just launched a new collaboration tool for college students. I’m no longer a college student myself (thank God), so I haven’t given Wiggio a try, but it sounds useful.
One would think, of course, that the college collaboration market would be pretty crowded at this point — Mashable has a long list of companies in the space and how they compare to Wiggio. There’s also Koofers, a company incubated by LaunchBox Digital. But Wiggio’s focus seems rather unique — unlike Koofers and many similar sites, it isn’t just about clasroom collaboration, and it doesn’t focus on note- or document-sharing. Instead, students use it anytime they have to work with a group. For example, that also includes collaboration within clubs; or, in my case, I would have found it useful when shooting my student movie. (Yes, I shot a student movie. Two, in fact. No, you can’t see it.)
Wiggio, which was founded by seniors at Cornell, includes polling, mass messaging, conference calls, document sharing, a calendar and a to-do list. Basically, it’s trying to clean up the messy back-and-forth of emails whenever groups try to set up meetings, make decisions and so on. None of the technology is particularly groundbreaking — a particularly determined group of college students could accomplish everything by piecing together other services on their own — but putting it all in one place is convenient, and addresses’a pain point that I remember well. Heck, it’s something we still struggle with occasionally at VentureBeat, and there are startups that tackle similar problems for business users — scheduling site Presdo, for example, and decision-making/polling app Zapproved.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Wiggio has raised $450,000 in funding from undisclosed angels, according to VentureWire.
