Kutano is a browser add-on currently in beta that enables you to comment and participate in discussions regardless of the commenting system on the blog or website. The major benefit of this is that website owners can’t remove certain comments – thus the ‘democratization’ of information, as the developers like to call it. By not having negative comments removed, Kutano hopes to provide a more accurate representation of a product, brand or service.
For example, let’s say you bought an Apple computer, and the experience wasn’t exactly perfect; You could open up the Kutano sidebar and leave a comment about what went wrong – warn other potential buyers of flaws that the seller might not want you to know. The good thing about it is that they can’t do anything to stop Kutano.
Kutano is very easy to use, partly due to its single purpose, posting and responding to comments. Click the fast forward button and you’ve hidden Kutano out of sight.
I had the chance to ask some interesting questions about Kutano to Cathy Wright from Kules Public Relations:
Q: What would you say differentiates your product from similar products like Xpanity?
A: There are three key differentiators:
Kutano has developed (and has submitted the patent for) a new technology call Page Subject Recognition Technology. What this does is […] recognize the subject of the web page and delivers discussions and comments based on the subject of the page – not the URL. This is important as all other sites use the URL, which causes several problems for the user […]: lost or orphaned comments when the URL is updated (even through regular maintenance); disassociated discussions as some website pages have the same URL, but each page is clearly a different subject (Facebook is an example) and fractured discussions as some websites have multiple URLS for the same product (e-commerce sites like Amazon do this frequently). Kutano’s technology makes all these user problems disappear and creates a more seamless conversation on each page.
Kutano integrates into how people currently use the web; it doesn’t require users to change their regular web behavior. Kutano follows the user and is available whenever the user wants to use it, side-by-side any webpage. The UI was designed to flow with the users regular activities, and in many instances reduce the amount of time and effort to find comments and information on the web.
Kutano integrates into people’s existing social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. Users can broadcast their Kutano activity to their social networks to meet/discuss online in Kutano.
Q: Is the story on ‘About Us’ a real life experience of one of the founders? Is that how the idea for the service was conceived?
A: This story is one of many such true instances our engineers experienced that helped generate the idea for the product. The idea is to create a site where people can share information and experiences and help other people in a more positive environment. Unlike “gripe sites” Kutano was developed to share information, reviews, etc. Today we have over 1 million comments on the site and the environment is fun and informative.
Q: How do you plan on monetizing the service?
A: Our patent pending technology allows us to develop a truly unique ad platform. With our technology, companies can significantly expand their reach and advertise on any site where their brand or product is mentioned (like a Sony camera can advertise on any blog, website, forum, etc. that mentions them). They can also advertise on their competitor’s site (Home Depot can advertise on Lowe’s, for example) and also advertise on sites that currently do not support advertising (a tax law firm can advertise on the IRS site).
Q: What kind of filters are/will be put in place? Will you take down user comments if requested by a website author? If not isn’t that subject to ‘defamatory’ and ‘libel’ suits?
A: We give the user control over his/her own experience. When they create an account, they can decide how to filter the comments they see. For instance, a user can select to see only those comments that were rated 4 stars or higher by the community. The user will not see other comments.
They will know that other comments exist and can click on them if they choose once they are on a web page, but they will not be automatically visible to the user. We give users a second option of viewing comments so they can track the entire conversation if they so desire. Users may also edit their preferences at any time In the name of full disclosure, this feature is currently being built and will launch in the next few weeks while we are still in beta. As we do with all features, we will test this with our users to ensure that it meets their needs.
Q: Since Kutano is always running in the background, how would you sum up the privacy policy regarding tracking users behavior?
A: Our servers are hosted by a reputable company and have extensive firewalls protecting the information from hackers. In addition, there are only 3 officers within the company that have access to the databases. We do not sell or rent this information to anyone.
Kutano, a 1.8MB download, is available for Firefox or Internet Explorer from their website. Meanwhile, what do you think about the service?
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chirp
The closest I got to any sort of satisfaction these past weeks was a game winning killcam in COD:MW2. God, can I get a freaking brake? 2 weeks ago
Kutano Takes The Internet Back To Its Roots
By Stefan in WebFor example, let’s say you bought an Apple computer, and the experience wasn’t exactly perfect; You could open up the Kutano sidebar and leave a comment about what went wrong – warn other potential buyers of flaws that the seller might not want you to know. The good thing about it is that they can’t do anything to stop Kutano.
Kutano is very easy to use, partly due to its single purpose, posting and responding to comments. Click the fast forward button and you’ve hidden Kutano out of sight.
I had the chance to ask some interesting questions about Kutano to Cathy Wright from Kules Public Relations:
Q: What would you say differentiates your product from similar products like Xpanity?
A: There are three key differentiators:
Q: Is the story on ‘About Us’ a real life experience of one of the founders? Is that how the idea for the service was conceived?
A: This story is one of many such true instances our engineers experienced that helped generate the idea for the product. The idea is to create a site where people can share information and experiences and help other people in a more positive environment. Unlike “gripe sites” Kutano was developed to share information, reviews, etc. Today we have over 1 million comments on the site and the environment is fun and informative.
Q: How do you plan on monetizing the service?
A: Our patent pending technology allows us to develop a truly unique ad platform. With our technology, companies can significantly expand their reach and advertise on any site where their brand or product is mentioned (like a Sony camera can advertise on any blog, website, forum, etc. that mentions them). They can also advertise on their competitor’s site (Home Depot can advertise on Lowe’s, for example) and also advertise on sites that currently do not support advertising (a tax law firm can advertise on the IRS site).
Q: What kind of filters are/will be put in place? Will you take down user comments if requested by a website author? If not isn’t that subject to ‘defamatory’ and ‘libel’ suits?
A: We give the user control over his/her own experience. When they create an account, they can decide how to filter the comments they see. For instance, a user can select to see only those comments that were rated 4 stars or higher by the community. The user will not see other comments.
They will know that other comments exist and can click on them if they choose once they are on a web page, but they will not be automatically visible to the user. We give users a second option of viewing comments so they can track the entire conversation if they so desire. Users may also edit their preferences at any time In the name of full disclosure, this feature is currently being built and will launch in the next few weeks while we are still in beta. As we do with all features, we will test this with our users to ensure that it meets their needs.
Q: Since Kutano is always running in the background, how would you sum up the privacy policy regarding tracking users behavior?
A: Our servers are hosted by a reputable company and have extensive firewalls protecting the information from hackers. In addition, there are only 3 officers within the company that have access to the databases. We do not sell or rent this information to anyone.
Kutano, a 1.8MB download, is available for Firefox or Internet Explorer from their website. Meanwhile, what do you think about the service?
Tags: addon, comments, firefox, internet explorer, Interviews, kutano