While I participate in the alpha and beta testing for many web services, this is the first time I am writing about a pre-alpha product. However, I think that the concept behind Plato’s Forms could be key to the future of blogging. With so many blogs and so much misinformation in the wild, there is a need to create a venue for bloggers to communicate with the companies they are writing about.
On three occasions, I have been asked by the blog I was writing for to contact the company that was discussed in my post and get their comments ahead of publication. Since I did not have a contact at these companies, I first had to figure out who to try and contact. Then I had to wait to hear back. In the first case I never heard back and the blog never ran my article. In the second case I never heard back, but the blog ran my article after waiting a week. In the third case I was able to use the name of the blog I was writing for and actually got a response – albeit little more than “no comment, Mr. small fry.”
This is the challenge that has led to the founding of Plato’s forms by Darryl Siry (CEO) and Ben Metcalfe (CTO). The company has just received 545,000 in seed money and plans its first product for journalists and corporate communications professionals in the Spring of 2010.
The investment provides some credence that Plato’s Forms is on to something, but at this point since they have no demo I am more intrigued by the idea than any reality. The idea is simple, responsible bloggers want to get input from the companies they are writing about. Many companies are willing to talk to a journalist and add commentary to the story the journalist is writing. However, while companies can staff to respond to a limited number of newspaper, magazine or TV reporters, few have the resources to respond to every blogger. Plato’s Forms hopes to offer that communication pipeline – a way to allow a responsible blogger to reach a company and vica-versa.
Plato’s Forms is selling itself to investors as “a professional messaging platform focused on solving the problem of rapid proliferation of misinformation in online media.” I will be keeping an eye on this start-up (check out their blog), but only time will tell if they can truly help connect bloggers and companies in a meaningful manner.
