Three months ago we announced the ‘death of comments‘ on stage at the Techcrunch Real-time Crunchup.
In their place, we created a new product and with it, a new product category that we call Real-Time Streams for Content.
Since then we have worked hard to innovate based on customer feedback. Some visible upgrades to Echo since its launch included Whirlpools, Pause, Split Streams, Social Likes and more.
Our changes and improvements have been kindly acknowledged by the industry including being listed as one of the top 10 technologies for 2009 by ReadWriteWeb.
“Echo, from JS-Kit is a reverse syndication service for distributed social media conversations. It brings back tweets and other mentions to the page they refer to. The service is growing fast and becoming more sophisticated every week. New features come so fast and furious that it’s overwhelming but the end result is an experience that brings the dispersed social web back together again.” - Marshall Kirkpatrick, RWW
Today we are announcing 3 new and related moves by JS-Kit…
Branding
JS-Kit, the company, is renaming itself to Echo. We believe this name better fits the new direction of the business.
Mission
We believe that the web is changing. Content used to be connected by links; Content is now connected through real-time streams. Therefore we would like to re-affirm Echo’s core mission:
To enable publishers to create and curate ‘real-time streams’ for their content.
Using cutting edge technologies, philosophies and user experiences, we work with publishers to make them first class citizens on the real-time social web.
Customers
In support of this new name and clarified mission, we are announcing our first group of customers to join the real-time web with Echo:
CBS/CNet, Discovery News, Dow Jones Local Media Group, Hearst Digital News, The Press Enterprise, CanWest, Technorati and KQED (an NPR and PBS affiliate).
Echo is uniquely placed to work with customers of this caliber due to our robust moderation tools, enterprise grade support and scalability forged from 3 years of R&D in the comments and publisher tools space.
Earlier today we held a conference with our media friends. As part of the briefing, we included representatives from The Press Enterprise, Hearst Digital Media and Discovery to explain, in their own words, why they chose to partner with Echo.
Here’s some of what they had to say:
“Echo challenges the notion that comments are static, isolated events. Echo Streams liberate the ‘comment’ with thoughts from social web and a dynamic conversation that encourages participation and sharing.” – The Press Enterprise
“Echo is the nexus for community conversation regardless of where it takes place is truly leveraging the strengths of the medium and exactly where we need to be as a digital content provider and engager.” – Sean Polay, Product Manager, Dow Jones Local Media group
These partners, and their peers in the other companies listed above, are working closely with us to continue to shape Echo and ensure that it is the first, best platform for real-time streams for content.
