It pays to time your tweets: SocialFlow debuts self-serve platform and eyes new funding

SocialFlow, which helps brands and publishers optimize their performance across Facebook and Twitter, is launching its self-service platform today. The company has had a banner year, growing from just 2 employees to more than 30 and graduating from the betaworks building to their own office on the east side of Manhattan.

To get a sense of how the company works, let's take the example from one of their clients, The Economist. With SocialFlow, which guides which messages The Economist puts out to its followers and when, the venerable publishers has grown its social media fanbase five times faster than average and increased engagement with its audience at a rate eight times greater than before it used Social Flow.

Betaworks rewards its investors and looks to the future of real time networks

Digital studio Betaworks is all about the real time web, so how’s this for speed? It took the company less than a year to generate a return on the $20 million it raised last March. Over the weekend PandoDaily reported that Betaworks gave back all invested capital plus a dividend with cash left over for its balance sheet.

Founder and chief executive John Borthwick used his letter to investors to lay out the four trends … Continue Reading

Betaworks co-founder Andy Weissman jumps ship to Union Square Ventures

In a shakeup for New York’s startup scene, Andy Weissman, co-founder of the NYC startup incubator Betaworks, is leaving to join VC firm Union Square Ventures.

Weissman’s move, first reported by Betabeat, is yet another interesting development for Union Square, which we learned yesterday was raising a fourth investment fund worth between $150 million and $200 million.

Weissman was previously in charge of Betaworks’ investment portfolio. Now the company plans to shift its focus, as … Continue Reading

Chartbeat maker launches new traffic analytics for news sites

I already spend a good chunk of my time obsessively checking traffic analytics for VentureBeat through Chartbeat. It gives us a breakdown of where our readers are coming from and what stories are popular. Luckily there’s a least upper limit to my neuroticism, because Chartbeat only tracks the top stories on VentureBeat.

Not any more. The developers behind Chartbeat announced today that it is launching Newsbeat, a more in-depth traffic analytics tool geared toward news … Continue Reading