Swipp, the much-hyped app for sharing your opinions, has nabbed an additional $2 million in funding.

Swipp’s app asks you to share your opinions

After emerging from stealth mode in June 2012, Swipp has marketed its app to consumers. Sign up via Facebook to share with other Swipp fans (and brands) how you feel about products, news, and other topics. You can also access a real-time stream if you’re simply curious about what people think.

With its new infusion of funding, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company also announced the launch of “Swipp Plus,” a new business offering. Brands can pay to access relevant data; for instance, a major retailer might be interested to learn about how customers are reacting to its new spring line.

I downloaded the free app and gave it a try. The experience felt a bit awkward — I don’t personally know many of the folks on my Swipp stream — and frankly, don’t really care what they think about a scene from Die Hard. But Swipp is betting that most people love to share and that this information will prove useful to big brands.

Moreover, the data brands are collecting from Facebook and Twitter is often unstructured and scattered. So Swipp may have a real opportunity to pull in revenues if it can reach a critical mass of consumers.

Brands like Macy’s or McDonald’s can use the app to pinpoint top influencers — those who frequently “Swipp” their products. The company says marketers can also use the app to keep tabs on the competition and track how their products are perceived over time.

A Swipp Plus dashboard for brands

Swipp is hoping you’ll use the app as an alternative to — or alongside — Facebook and Twitter.

“We look at social as it is today as version 1.0. It’s really just the first instance,” Swipp CEO and co-founder Don Thorson told VentureBeat in a recent interview. “What kind of applications would the world come up with if you had everyone persistently connected on the globe?”

Swipp isn’t the only app that is gauging consumer sentiment. Knotch uses a color scale (as opposed to Swipp’s smiley face) and asks consumers to express how they feel about anything from the latest Game of Thrones episode to their experience at the gym. Likewise, Knotch intends to make money by helping brands target consumers. ”For marketers, this data is really valuable,” Knotch’s CEO Anda Gansca said in a recent interview.

This new infusion of cash brings Swipp’s total funding to $5.5 million. Venture firm Old Willow Partners lead the previous funding round.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The unveiling of Office 365 Home Premium may be a giant step for Microsoft, but analysts say Redmond still has a long road ahead in its effort to regain consumer confidence.

The new Office 365, which became available yesterday, is a subscription-based version of Microsoft’s venerable, profitable productivity suite, with the addition of copious cloud-based features.

Microsoft had to make this overhaul of Office due to increasing competition from online productivity services such as Apple iWork and Google Drive.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer called it “Office reinvented as a consumer cloud service.” The cloud-based approach means that Microsoft can release updates more regularly rather than being stuck in a three-year release cycle.

For $100 per year, consumers and small businesses can access all the Office apps — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, OneNote, and Access — from up to five devices, including tablets, Macs, and PCs.

There’s also a subscription aimed at college students, called Office 365 University, which gives four years of access for up to two devices for $80.

In addition, Office 365 adds in the company’s InfoPath and Lync Online tools for instant messaging. Vanessa Thompson, research manager for analyst firm IDC, said those additions are minor but important updates, and bring the new offering in line with Google Apps.

But by adapting its product to how we work now — in the cloud and across multiple devices — Microsoft wants to recapture the consumer and small business market.

But will it succeed?

Will consumers bite?

Analysts we contacted agreed that the low annual subscription fee and bonus extras (such as 60 minutes of free Skype calling, and an upgrade in SkyDrive storage from 7GB to 20GB) will appeal to consumers.

Still, Redmond needs to push its marketing efforts into high gear.

“Microsoft will need to go to great lengths to convince users that its online offering has feature parity with its desktop software,” said Phil Black, a program manager at the Urban Business Initiative, a group that instructs small businesses about new technology.

Black stressed the importance of offering “specific examples” for how users will be able to take advantage of the cloud-based features in the new release. He predicts that consumer adoption will be slow at first but will pick up as Microsoft learns to navigate the “tricky pathway” from desktop to cloud.

It’s also a smart move to offer a version of Office 365 aimed squarely at college students. It comes at a better overall price and lets students install the software twice. Microsoft will be able to build loyalty with a tech-savvy demographic that might otherwise experiment with Adobe, which is also jumping onto the cloud bandwagon.

Lincoln Murphy, managing director of cloud consulting firm Sixteen Ventures, sees another potential benefit: the reduction of “rampant piracy.” He said the low annual price point will deter people from illegally downloading popular apps like Word and Excel.

The verdict? The low price will put downward pressure on competitors to offer equally high-quality services at an even cheaper rate.  Murphy said Microsoft’s commitment to the cloud is a “win” for consumers — “in many ways, Office 365 could be the rising tide that lifts all boats,” he said.

How about small and medium-sized businesses?

Analysts view this release as a means for Microsoft to get a “legitimate foot back in the door” with small businesses.

“Small and medium-sized businesses view the cloud as the future but were probably wondering where one of their most trusted vendors was when looking at options,” Murphy explained.

Thompson makes the case that the software as a service (SaaS) model and Lync integration puts the new Office 365 in line with Google Apps. However, “incentivising users away from a freemium competitor product that meets up to 80 percent of their needs is a consistent challenge for Microsoft,” she said. “Expect them to continually iterate on pricing and packaging.”

Black warns that widespread corporate adoption (as Microsoft moves up-market) won’t be immediate.

“IT departments know that Microsoft releases the first version of any software before performance and stability testing is truly complete,” he said, adding that Redmond will need to prove it is “truly committed to a hosted model of its Office software.”

The verdict? Microsoft has emphasized in messaging that the cloud-based Office is intended for consumers. As the company shifts focus, expect to see highly-targeted efforts to reach small businesses, who view cloud-based business technology as the future.

The news comes via Developer Tom Waddington, who found a Want button in the Facebook Javascript developer kit. Only compatible with objects marked as products, the button would allow users to list on Facebook things they might want to buy rather than just things that they like.

At the beginning of the year, Facebook announced that with Actions, the Open Graph would start containing a lot more verbs — and a lot more structured data along with it. It all plays into Facebook’s larger plan to create interesting, informative Timelines for each user, profiles that give a picture of who you are through scanable summaries from apps you use.

With a Want button — or really, with any Facebook-linked action that ties to structured data about products – companies have a very clear and accurate way to gauge consumer interest. That two million people want an iPhone tells Apple and its advertisers quite a bit: Not only will companies be able to measure appreciation (Like!) but now desire (Want!). A “Want” button removes all ambiguity and ties into the interest graph trend that’s been blowing up since Pinterest came on the scene.

“We’re always testing new Platform features; however, we have nothing new to announce,” a Facebook spokesperson told VentureBeat in a statement.

Photo: Ricardo Bilton

For the first time ever, Apple has been ranked the top consumer brand in Japan in Nikkei’s annual brand ranking.

Apple shot up from 11th place last year, and 64th place three years ago, hitting 90.5 points for total brand power among consumers. The news shows that Japan is finally beginning to warm up to the American computer company — most likely due to the rise of the iPhone and iPad. Notably, Google fell from first place to second.

Among businesspeople, Apple ranked second place, with Toyota taking the top spot. Nikkei notes that the iPad and two other Apple products made the list for top 40 brands.

The consumer ranking is particularly significant since Japan has often shunned foreign consumer technology. Microsoft’s Xbox and Xbox 360, for example, have struggled to find ground in the country where Nintendo and Sony reign supreme.

Here’s how the rankings were put together, according to Nikkei: “The Brand Japan 2012 survey had a consumer market category targeting 1,000 brands, as well as a business market category for 500 brands. It was conducted online over November and December of last year. Overall brand power scores were calculated based on the responses of some 52,000 people aged 18 and older.”

The rankings are as follows (with last year’s ranking in parenthesis):

1. (11) Apple
2. (1) Google
3. (2) Uniqlo
4. (7) YouTube
5. (6) Disney
6. (4) McDonalds
7. (3) Panasonic
8. (5) Nissan
9. (39) Daiso
10. (9) Rakuten

Photo via Ivan Walsh/Flickr

The feature will enable any consumer to request that a business launch a daily deal. For example, I could request that a local restaurant offer a $50 off coupon for $25. Once the deal is accepted by Loopt, the deal requester is then asked to share it. Using channels like Facebook, Twitter, text and more, connections can “sign up.” The final step involves Loopt reaching out to the business and getting them to agree to the deal.

While this sounds like a great idea, I can’t get past several speed bumps to the overall process. First, the influx of bad deals may overwhelm Loopt. I can imagine people asking for free stuff or ridiculous discounts, which could result in a lot of wasted time and energy.

Second, getting friends, family or colleagues to buy into the deal. Compared to sites like Groupon, who have millions of people who are receiving a daily deal and thus increases the chances of a small percentage wanting it, Loopt is asking one consumer to spam their contacts to try to get interest. Third, getting the business to agree to the deal. If the deal requester gets a substantial amount of people to buy in to the deal, then the chances increase, but I can’t imagine businesses will accept deals with just a dozen or so people.

To process the deal purchases, Loopt is outsourcing to ChompOn, a group-buying tool.

Currently, Loopt u-Deals is available today on the Loopt Android app in the San Francisco Bay Area only.

The Mountain View, Calif. based company, founded in 2006, has raised a total of $17 million from Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates. It was incubated by Y Combinator.