A startup called Wakoopa has raised funding from Big Bang Ventures and HENQ Invest for its social network, which share information about the software that its members use. The company’s announcement doesn’t mention the size of the round, but TechCrunch reports that it was $1 million.
Wakoopa users download an application from the Amsterdam-based startup, and that application checks every 15 minutes to see what software they’re using. The company then shares that information with their friends in the network, and recommends software based on the data it has collected. Members can also use the data to build their own widgets through Wakoopa’s application programming interfaces (APIs).
Wakoopa says it has 250 million hours worth of data on 30,000 users. I’m guessing that the audience for the network is limited to techie developer types — perhaps I’m underestimating the appeal that information about software has to a mass audience — but even so, there’s still a lot of potential for growth. And we’ve actually covered other networking startups like Ohloh that are even nerdier — er, more “developer-focused.”
The data that Wakoopa has collected is pretty interesting; the company provides a list of most-used software overall. Firefox tops the list, followed by three other web browsers, then a bunch of Microsoft applications.
As more and more applications move into the web and the browser, it will also be interesting to see how Wakoopa tries to stay relevant.
