organized by categories (“notebooks”) like trips, restaurants, wedding or project planning, and so forth. The app can also be personalized for mobile devices. And the information you save (on books or movies, say) is automatically categorized, so you can tag it for recall later. That also makes it easy for the service to pull in information from outside sources like Netflix or Amazon.com, where you can make purchases. What’s more, Springpad has an extension for Google’s Chrome browser, so people can access their data from anywhere on the Web, not just in the app itself.
I could go on and on—HTML5 means the interface is snazzier and you can drag and drop stuff around and do things like add labels and maps—but really people should just try it out and see if it works for them (check out a video demo here). A slick new version of the free Springpad app for the iPad is also expected to hit the iTunes App Store this week; one of its features is a corkboard-style screen where users can pin individual notes.
In the meantime, Janer has been meeting with heavyweights like Google (both Android and Chrome groups), Apple (for the iPad app), Microsoft (Bing), and Facebook, looking for new ways to integrate with them and get broader exposure. Like many consumer apps, Janer says, “we’re not inherently viral. We need word of mouth to not spend a bloody fortune on marketing. Word of mouth takes time.”
Spring Partners raised a $4 million Series A venture round from Fairhaven Capital in 2008. So far, the company has been focused on customer growth and engagement, which Janer says has been “dramatic” since the introduction of the company’s mobile apps earlier this year. Asked to quantify the growth, he said Springpad has seen a 10-fold increase in its user base, which now numbers 500,000 registered users. The company currently has 13 employees, and will look to raise more money in the first half of 2011, he says.
I wondered about the broader significance of the new release, and how it relates to the consumer feedback Springpad has gotten so far. “People have been looking for another layer of organization,” Janer says. “We’re going to see a big uptake, because it’s easier and more functional for people to use. If they use it more, all good things happen from that. The value proposition is, the more [information] you save, the more you get.”
