Posterbee is relaunching today – yes, they’re pivoting! – as a more efficient way for teams to share what the Estonian startup refers to as “ambient information”, such as news, slides, reports and videos.
It combines elements of Facebook’s news feed (these are called ‘streams’), including the ability to comment on any shared item, with the ‘bookmarklet’ functionality of, say, Delicious. Another comparison might be the sharing aspect of Yammer or its many competitors. And in fact Posterbee originally launched in September as a more generic group communications app not dissimilar in concept to the new Facebook groups, but is now targeting knowledge workers and other small teams through what’s being pitched as a better alternative to email or IM for sharing information, which no doubt it is.
The main User Interface is divided into two panes. Down the left hand side is a list of shared items, while the right hand side offers an in-line view of each piece of shared content, including support for links, video, PDFs and Powerpoint presentations uploaded to Slideshare. As noted, each item can be commented on and Posterbee also borrows Facebook’s ‘Like’ button functionality so that items can be deemed more interesting or relevant by the system.
Getting content into Posterbee to share with your team is achieved via a browser bookmarklet or by entering notes and links in free form. Additionally, each stream gets a dedicated email address to enable specific team members to forward content by email, and there’s also the ability to push content via Twitter using the appropriate hash tag once you’ve connected your account.
In terms of revenue, like other collaboration tools Posterbee is employing a Freemium model. The basic service is free with €5 and €25/month paid packages for businesses that require greater storage and “advanced data security”. Next up on the roadmap is likely to be mobile versions for easier content consumption, and a “relevancy engine that factors in feedback both on and off Posterbee.” And, of course, there’s plans for an API too.
Posterbee is founded by VC and angel investor Allan Martinson (Chairman), Andrus Raudsalu (CEO), Kalle Volkov (CTO) and Veiko Jääger (lead designer). The company announced €200,000 of funding from the Estonian Development fund and private angel investors in August 2010.