Most web developers working on new startups are so focused on making their applications as impressive as possible that they forget to spend time cultivating a pre-launch following of potential users online. KickoffLabs is an interesting web-app that automates that process and helps people acquire new customers using viral marketing tactics before their official sites have even gone live.

Start a free trial and check out what KickoffLabs has to offer by entering your email address or signing in through Facebook. Once you’ve verified your account, you’ll be asked to type in a name for your site, and you can design a custom landing page right away. This landing page will be the first thing that visitors see from your new startup before its official launch, so you’ll want to make sure it looks good. Add a logo, choose a background, type a description, and add forms that invite people to leave their email addresses to receive notifications when your startup is ready to launch. You can also include a social networking component that encourages visitors to help spread the word about your upcoming application through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+. KickoffLabs makes it easy for you to send personalized thank you emails to all of your new subscribers and create professional-looking newsletters that can be sent out periodically to keep people updated on what’s going on with your launch.

The landing pages created with KickoffLabs are easy to track and measure with various analytics tools. Users can sign up to receive daily reports with page view stats and visitor demographic information. People can also use KickoffLabs’ analytics tools to find out where the visitors who check out their landing pages are coming from. This data is useful when it comes to rewarding and thanking influencers online.

Practical Uses:

• Get people interested in the new website you’re creating before going live
• Gather the email addresses of people who are interested in your startup
• Send newsletters to get people excited about your upcoming launch
• Find out which Twitter users are bringing the most people to your site

Insider Tips:

• Visitor email addresses can be exported at any time
• Users can see their landing page conversion rates over the last 30 days
• Tracking visitor demographic data can be helpful when trying to develop a marketing plan
• Visitors can be sorted by influence, which is how many direct and indirect signups came because of a particular visitor’s recommendation

What we liked:

• KickoffLabs is relatively inexpensive, which is good for startups with limited funds
• The ability to capture email addresses and demographic data is important for fledgling companies
• Landing pages can be created in just one minute
• The user data collected by KickoffLabs can be exported at any time

What we didn’t like:

• Users that opt for the Plus plan can only send out one newsletter a month

Alternatives:

• LaunchRock – http://launchrock.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Sammamish, Washington, and Monroe Township, New Jersey
• Founded by: Scott Watermasyk and Josh ledgard
• Web site: http://www.kickofflabs.com

Costs:

• Plus plan is $15/month
• Premium plan is $20/month
• Max plan is $50/month

500px is an online community where photographers of all skill levels can share ideas, offer insight, and work together to build their brands. Created as a way to lessen the feelings of isolation that plague many freelance photographers, 500px users can connect with each other and also post their work in an environment where it is likely to get noticed.

Once you register for a 500px account or login with Facebook, you can begin uploading your best images for people to see and vote on. Browse through the photos that have been uploaded by other users, and “follow” the photographers whose work seems more intriguing. The people you follow can be added to an RSS feed, which will automatically update whenever they add new content to the 500px site. Not only can you give and receive constructive criticism about the photos posted on 500px, but you can also vote for your favorite images and create albums full of the pictures that you keep coming back to time and time again. By communicating with fellow photographers and sharing wisdom on a regular basis, there’s no doubt you’ll be able to improve your own skills and take better photographs as a result.

Users with upgraded accounts get access to even more features designed for the professional photographer or artist, including all the tools necessary to build photo websites, purchase custom domains, and integrate with Google Analytics. 500px is an excellent community that any serious photographer should check out.

Practical Uses:

• Create a professional portfolio to show potential clients
• Get ideas on how to improve your skills from fellow photographers
• Find out who has been visiting your photo website
• Promote your work to a wider audience

Insider Tips:

• Custom domains are available for upgraded accounts
• People can follow other users to find out when they post more work
• Websites that are created with upgraded accounts are iPad-friendly
• Users can add tags and descriptions to the photos they post

What we liked:

• 500px is helps bring together professionals who often work in isolation
• Photographers can actually learn how to improve their craft by using 500px
• People can vote on random photos to kill time when they’re bored
• The photo websites made with 500px look professional and polished

What we didn’t like:

• Users can’t get access to all the best website creation features without upgrading to a paid account

Alternatives:

• Carbonmade – http://carbonmade.com
• deviantART – http://www.deviantart.com
• Virb – http://virb.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2003 (Version 1)
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Toronto, Canada
• Founded by: Evgeny Tchebotarev and Oleg Gutsol
• Web site: http://500px.com

Costs:

• Free accounts
• Upgraded accounts are $50/year

GroupZap is a web-based tool that groups of teammates and colleagues can use to host real-time brainstorming sessions. The difference between a meeting that’s conducted through GroupZap and a meeting that’s held in a typical conference room—besides the abundance of high-tech features and tools—is that GroupZap is an inclusive application that helps people get involved no matter where they’re located in the world.

If you’re got remote workers and colleagues on your team, then you could use GroupZap to facilitate more productive group meetings and brainstorming sessions. Open an account and create separate boards for each brainstorming session you’re planning to hold. Share the URL of the board you’re working on with the members of your team in the same way you’d announce a 1:30 meeting in conference room B. Colleagues will show up virtually at the time you set and start working on whatever project is at hand. Unlike competing brainstorming apps, GroupZap doesn’t require users to draw on a virtual whiteboard by hand—leading to messy boards that are difficult to decipher. Instead, GroupZap utilizes virtual sticky notes that people can type on and place anywhere on a group board. Individual files and images can be dropped onto a board, as well, and all the elements can be rearranged to your heart’s content.

When your board is complete, you can playback and rewind the history of the brainstorming session to determine who came up with the winning ideas or how certain decisions came about. Colleagues have seven days to add additional thoughts to a brainstorming board, after which the board will be locked to prevent further changes. Of course, you can always keep a board for posterity by turning it into a PDF and distributing it to the members of your team at any point.

Practical Uses:

• Host a meeting to determine a marketing strategy for your latest product
• Get promotional ideas from your remote workers who aren’t in the office
• Let freelance associates contribute to group brainstorming sessions
• Encourage employees to replay a GroupZap session and check on what happened during a meeting they missed

Insider Tips:

• All GroupZap boards stay active for seven days
• Users can rewind and replay brainstorming sessions
• Boards can be saved as PDF files
• Images and files can be dragged and dropped onto a GroupZap board

What we liked:

• Sticky notes can be moved around in whatever way makes sense for the group
• Anyone with the URL can visit a group board without having to create an account
• Employees who weren’t available during a group meeting can replay the session to catch up later
• Users can customize their boards by adding stickers or changing the background

What we didn’t like:

• Boards expire after seven days, unless a user pays the $10 fee

Alternatives:

• ConceptShare – http://www.conceptshare.com
• Dabbleboard – http://www.dabbleboard.com
• Microproject – http://www.microproject.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: London, England
• Founded by: Cargo Cult Interactive
• Web site: http://groupzap.com

Costs:

• Free unlimited 7-day boards
• Pay-as-You-Go for $10/board
• Subscription plans coming soon

When you need a professional website fast, Weebly is the application to check out. The free website building tool can help anyone create a website or blog that looks professional, feels secure, and is completely custom – all in just a matter of a few short minutes.

At the center of Weebly is the web-apps drag-and-drop website builder. You don’t need any technical skills or experience whatsoever to be able to drag various website elements into place on your screen. Create an account and choose a template from one of the hundreds of options available on the Weebly site. Once your template has been selected, you can add content by dragging and dropping various elements into place. Add a title, video, maps, slideshows, photos, contact forms, or paragraphs of text. These elements can be moved around and re-arranged at any time, and you can crop or rotate photos within Weebly, as well. When your site is designed in a way that you like, it’s time move forward by registering your own domain. Or, if you’d rather not spend the money, then you can choose a free Weebly subdomain address or use a domain you already own. Weebly websites go live almost immediately.

Websites and blogs that are created with Weebly are hosted for free on its cloud-based hosting infrastructure. An online support center has been set up to answer questions and offer guidance at any time, day or night. Although Weebly may not be right for every busy professional, it is a great option for people who want a quick way to design a website for personal or business reasons.

Practical Uses:

• Design a website to promote your new hair salon
• Create an informational website for your wedding guests
• Build a website with maps and directions to an upcoming charity event
• Spread the word about your new restaurant by building a website with menus, photos, and videos

Insider Tips:

• Users can purchase domains through Weebly
• Weebly offers Google AdSense integration for users who want advertising on their sites
• Photos can be editing in Weebly by using the ImagePerfect Image Editor
• Users with upgraded accounts get additional features, like password protection and audio players

What we liked:

• The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to design a website
• Weebly offers hundreds of stylish templates
• Users can always upgrade to a paid plan if they want additional storage
• People with limited funds or technical knowledge can make their own websites

What we didn’t like:

• Users can only drag and drop elements into places that Weebly allows, which limits how much a site can truly be customized

Alternatives:

• Doodlekit – http://doodlekit.com
• Jimdo – http://www.jimdo.com
• SiteKreator – http://sitekreator.com

Company Info:

• Launched: June 2006
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California
• Founded by: Dan Veltri, David Rusenko, and Chris Fanini
• Web site: http://www.weebly.com

Costs:

• Free accounts
• Pro accounts are $4.99/month

Family is the most important thing in life to many people, which is why it’s surprising how little some children know about their parents, grandparents, and distant relatives. The stories that define families need to be preserved if they’re going to last for generations, and Proust is a web-app that aims to help in that regard.

Proust is a storytelling tool that you can use to keep track of stories from your parents, grandparents, and elderly relatives. Start by telling your own story and describing a memory that makes you smile. In addition to a written answer, you can include photos, videos, and special files to help make your memory come to life. The stories you share online will be private and viewable only to those people you select. Once you’ve uploaded a bit of your own personal history, you can start inviting family members to join in. Select the specific questions or chapter of questions you’d like to your dad or grandmother to answer. Proust will send a message to the intended recipient asking him or her to answer the query, and you can respond by adding your own thoughtful message below their responses. As you invite more family members to participate and ask more questions of your loved ones, your story will grow and you’ll begin to see a revealing timeline of your family’s history. Eventually, you will have created a virtual storybook that can be flipped through just like a paperback novel.

Individual users can decide how public or private they want their family histories to be by using the web-app’s extensive privacy settings. Adding important files like scanned documents and personal essays, tagging family members who also use the service, and including relevant dates and location information for select events can also help enhance family stories. For family historians who want a better way to record and preserve their most precious memories, Proust is a really neat solution.

Practical Uses:

• Preserve your family’s history for future generations
• Never forget the stories your dad used to tell about his youth
• Save all of your grandmother’s recipes in one place
• Learn more about your grandfather’s time in the military

Insider Tips:

• Individual family pages can be made public or private
• Family stories can be turned into a timeline, a storybook, or placed on a map based on where each event took place
• Users can select pre-made questions to ask their relatives or write their own
• Photos and videos can be uploaded and added to any story

What we liked:

• Proust offers a great way to archive important family information
• The online format is great for relatives who live far away
• Proust’s pre-made questions are excellent conversation starters
• Users can comment on their relatives’ stories

What we didn’t like:

• Some older relatives may not be comfortable typing their stories into Proust, especially if they aren’t familiar with social networking or email

Alternatives:

• Ancestry.com – http://www.ancestry.com
• Family Connections – http://www.familycms.com
• MyFamily – https://www.myfamily.com

Company Info:

• Launched: July 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: New York, New York
• Founded by: Tom Cortese and Jason Fotinatos
• Web site: http://www.proust.com

Costs:

• Free

Webpop is a cloud-based content management system that professional designers can use to build websites for their clients. What makes Webpop different from the hundreds of other CMS options available is the quality of the websites that it can help create. With Webpop, designers can develop sites that are both visually striking and easy for their clients to update.

If you’re a professional web designer, then you probably don’t want to be limited by templates and pre-selected color combos. Webpop is a solution that professionals can use to build custom websites with a back end that clients can actually update and manage on their own. The web-app comes with no pre-defined blocks of HTML and no drag-and-drop interface, which means you can get to work designing your sites with HTML and CSS you’ve crafted yourself. Once the site is structurally sound, you can hand off the content work to your client. The interface that a client sees when he logs into Webpop will be very different from what you see as the designer. Client interfaces are limited, which is helpful for people who need to pop in and update the content on their sites from time to time without getting bogged down by complicated options and advanced controls. Your clients can edit the menus, availability schedules, and descriptions on their websites with ease.

Clients can also manage their own SEO strategies and keep an eye on traffic thanks to Webpop’s integrated analytics features. Business owners that want to monitor their search engine rankings and track the progress of their Twitter-based campaigns will appreciate how easy the system is to use, while designers appreciate how much freedom it gives them when creating new websites from scratch.

Practical Uses:

• Hire a designer to build a website that you can update on your own
• Create a website for your new restaurant
• See how many people are finding your website through special links that you sent out
• Change the content on your site without having to contact your designer for help

Insider Tips:

• Webpop sites are hosted on the Rackspace Cloud
• Designers have full control over the HTML, CSS, and javascript they use
• Overlays show clients what content can and can’t be changed on any page
• Clients can see the top keywords that are bringing people to their sites

What we liked:

• Webpop is a tool that designers can use to make life easier on clients who want to update their own sites
• Limited tools for clients ensure they won’t get confused when trying to change content
• Analytics tools are built into the content management system
• Websites can be SEO optimized by designers or their clients

What we didn’t like:

• Nothing

Alternatives:

• Drupal – http://drupal.org
• Joomla! – http://www.joomla.org
• WordPress – http://wordpress.org

Company Info:

• Privately Held
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California
• Founded by: Daniel Villegas, Julio Gonzalez Cotorruelo, and Mathias Biilmann
• Web site: http://www.webpop.com

Costs:

• Personal plan is $19/month
• Freelance plan is $49/month
• Agency plans range from is $99/month to $299/month

Photorank.me is a tool that aspiring photographers can use to get discovered and improve their skills. Although the site is aimed at amateur photographers who want to know more about what their followers on various social networks think of the things they post, it can also be used by anyone who posts images online on a regular basis.

If you’ve used Klout to measure your social influence, then you’ll understand Photorank.me from the get-go. The web-app digs down into the photos you’ve posted on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, and Picplz and measures the quality and frequency of the images you’ve shared. Photorank.me will give you a score that falls somewhere between 0 and 100 based on the on the reach, activity, and quality of your photos. This score means very little when looked at out of context, which is why it’s more fun to use Photorank.me if your friends are involved, too. Photorank.me compares your score to the scores of your friends and posts your position on a leaderboard that can be viewed online at any time. You can also see how your scores compare to other users worldwide, or just those people in your home country, by checking out those areas of the site-wide leaderboard.

Users with scores of 60 and above can take part in Photorank.me “Challenges,” where they can compete with friends and followers online. Photorank.me also offers a useful “Insights” tool, which features out all of a person’s photo-related activity online, including the number of uploads, votes, views, a comments that their photos have attracted in the past week or month.

Practical Uses:

• Find out which of your friends posts the best photos online
• Strive to post better photos on Twitter to improve your score
• See which of your photos is attracting the most attention
• Compare your scores to those of your followers online

Insider Tips:

• Only users with scores above 60 can take part in ‘challenges’
• The leaderboard can be broken down by country
• Users can improve their scores by linking up additional photo accounts
• Insights graphs can be set up to show activity from the past seven days or 30 days

What we liked:

• A high score on Photorank.me can be a status symbol in certain groups
• Friends can compare their scores to determine whose online photos are the best
• Photorank.me lets people see exactly how many photos they’ve uploaded recently
• The Insights feature can be useful for businesses with company Twitter accounts

What we didn’t like:

• Photorank.me only links up with a handful of photo services, and photos that are posted on other services won’t be taken into account

Alternatives:

• Klout – http://klout.com

Company Info:

• Launched: July 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: New York, New York
• Founded by: Olapic
• Web site: http://photorank.me

Costs:

• Free

EverWrite is a tool that publishers, marketers, and writers can use to craft online content that will get noticed by search engines like Google and Bing. The web-application analyzes what people are reading about online and provides insight on the specific topics that are most likely to get noticed by readers. In addition to these topic recommendations, the site also crafts custom keywords that writers can include in their work to increase the odds that their content will appear on the first page of Google or Bing results.

Getting started with EverWrite should take no more than 30 seconds. Once you’ve selected a pricing plan based on how much traffic your site currently receives, you’ll be able to sit back and relax as EverWrite does the heavy lifting and analyzes the writing you’ve already done. Based on this analysis, EverWrite will come up with a customized list of keywords that are similar in nature to the content you already have published. A person who writes about fashion on a regular basis might get keyword ideas like, “2011 Fashion Week” or “stylish winter coats.” These keywords are based on what real people are searching for right now. Each suggested keyword gets a score from 0 to 10, which is used to show the chances of an article making it onto the first page of a major search engine by using that keyword. If you’re like most publishers, you probably write about more than just one topic. EverWrite understands this, and it will create keyword groups based around the topics you write about most frequently. A sports blog might have groups such as “soccer,” “football,” and “basketball,” for example, and each group would get its own set of unique keywords.

In addition to helping people select reader-friendly topics to write about and search engine-friendly keywords to embed, EverWrite also offers Google Analytics integration and special keyword performance tracking tools. Every keyword that a user selects from EverWrite’s list will be monitored. Using EverWrite’s tools, writers and publishers can keep tabs on how well those keywords are working and how many people are coming to their sites from various search engines.

Practical Uses:

• Write about the topics your online fans want to read about
• Increase traffic stats by bringing in more new readers from Google and Bing
• Develop content around the most popular keyword terms
• Help your blog get noticed by people who are searching for specific information online

Insider Tips:

• EverWrite integrates with Google Analytics
• Each keyword is ranked on a scale of 0 to 10
• Pricing plans are based on how much traffic a user’s website gets each month
• Performance reports show how many times a visitor was brought to a website after searching for a specific keyword

What we liked:

• Individual publishers can improve their search engine rankings by using this app
• EverWrite helps writers boost their search engine traffic organically by using keywords in their articles
• Smart topics ideas are based on the topics a publisher is already posting about
• EverWrite offers suggestions, and people can choose whether or not to use them

What we didn’t like:

• Nothing

Alternatives:

• None

Company Info:

• Launched: 2011 (Beta)
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Delaware
• Founded by: Diego Gomes and Edmar Ferreira
• Web site: http://myeverwrite.com

Costs:

• Pricing options are coming soon

EmbedPlus is a web-app that can change the way website visitors interact with your videos online. Using the video embed tool, web publishers can enhance the viewer experience by adding chapters, annotations, and professional-level edits to the clips and movies they post directly to their websites and blogs.

High quality videos have been proven to get more views and receive more positive feedback, and EmbedPlus has all the tools necessary to give any video a professional look. Although EmbedPlus offers more tools and features than video-sharing services like YouTube, the web-app doesn’t take any more know-how or skill to use. Just enter the URL of a video on YouTube, select the size, and choose where you’d like the video to start or stop. You can also select certain screen markers, which is what makes it possible for your online visitors to click through the various chapters of a video when looking for the most interesting parts. Add text annotations to the video, and click “Get Code.” EmbedPlus will present you with HTML code that you can copy and paste directly into your site.

One of the unique features that EmbedPlus offers is a real-time reaction button, which lets your website visitors see what other people around the web are saying about the videos they’re watching. EmbedPlus currently gets this information from YouTube comments, however it eventually hopes to pull content from Twitter feeds as well.

Practical Uses:

• Embed high definition videos on your blog
• Start and stop longer video clips at specific points, rather than at the beginning and the end
• Include text annotations to add context to the videos you post
• Encourage visitors to post comments and interact with the videos they’re watching

Insider Tips:

• Download a special plugin to embed videos on a WordPress blog
• Add chapters to a video by adding scene markers
• Designate a specific stop time for the video you’re posting
• Use the special bit.ly link to share the video via email, Twitter, or IM

What we liked:

• EmbedPlus can be used to improve videos that have already been posted online
• Blogs that post EmbedPlus clips look more professional
• Users can take advantage of EmbedPlus’ tools without signing up for an account
• EmbedPlus will improve video content without actually hosting it

What we didn’t like:

• Certain blog platforms, like WordPress, will automatically reformat EmbedPlus’ HTML code unless the user downloads a special plugin

Alternatives:

• Kaltura Stats – http://corp.kaltura.com
• magisto – http://www.magisto.com
• YouTube – http://www.youtube.com

Company Info:

• Launched: December 2010
• Privately Held
• Web site: http://www.embedplus.com

Costs:

• Free

Markup is a tool that people can use to draw directly on the web pages they’re viewing. Rather than taking screen grabs of websites, marking up those saved images in Photoshop, and then sharing those marked up files with colleagues via email, professionals in the design community can use Markup to share their thoughts and ideas about any website in seconds.

Getting started with Markup is simple. Drag the Markup tool to the bookmarks bar on your web browser to begin using the app. Next, head to whatever website you’re planning on marking up. A few examples of the sites you may want to work with would be a site your graphic design team is collaborating on or a website that you’re using as inspiration for a project that’s in the works. Markup offers a handful of tools that you can use to write and draw on websites, however the most important is the Magic Marker tool. Don’t worry about being perfect when you draw arrows, circles, and straight lines, since the Magic Marker tool will automatically correct your drawings and turn them into geometrically correct shapes. Other tools that are available to use include the box tool, the circle tool, the text tool, and the color tool. Use the size selector to adjust the thickness of certain marks you’ve already made. You can also rearrange the markups you’ve created on the page by dragging and dropping them in whichever way you please.

When you’re finished marking up a page, click “Publish” on the Markup toolbar. Markup will immediately generate a unique URL that you can use to share your project with colleagues via email or IM. The people you’ve shared with can respond to your project by adding marks of their own or starting fresh with their own blank pages.

Practical Uses:

• Collaborate with colleagues when designing a new website layout
• Get ideas from similar websites when building your own
• Share your favorite parts of a particular site with your web design team
• Show your employees what does not work about the site they’ve designed

Insider Tips:

• Use the bookmarklet to quickly access Markup’s tools
• Each published page gets its own URL
• Click Control + Z to undue any marks you’ve made on a page
• Users can make annotated notes with the text tool

What we liked:

• Markup requires no downloads or installs to use
• Drawings with the Magic Marker tool are automatically transformed into geometric shapes
• Marked up pages are not visible to anyone else until they’re published
• Colleagues can collaborate on marked up pages without using email or sending documents back and forth

What we didn’t like:

• All published Markup pages are public and they cannot be hidden with a password

Alternatives:

• Bounce – http://www.bounceapp.com
• Diigo – http://www.diigo.com
• scrible – http://www.scrible.com

Company Info:

• Launched: October 2010 (Beta)
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Chattanooga, Tennessee
• Founded by: Medium
• Web site: http://markup.io

Costs:

• Free