Dead Tags Can Hurt Your Startup, ObservePoint Can Help

The general consensus among website analytics experts is that 20% of tags on most websites for companies big and small are tagged incorrectly.

Provo, Utah startup ObservePoint has found that this discrepancy can amount to big losses for companies dependent on web traffic. The newest trend in web analytics companies are those that are doing “tag auditing”. ObservePoint is one of those companies.

In a recent case study, ObservePoint found that they’ve been able to increase the amount a site can sell ad and banner space for by 100% simply because the traffic site owners are reporting is actually lower as a result of tag “mis-firings”.

The same can be true for the other end of the spectrum as well. In some cases they’ve seen sites with up to 37% inflation because there are multiple instances of the same tag on a page that fire and then traffic numbers are inflated.

As mobile and web advertising continues to increase ten-fold, media buyers are desperately looking for the most accurate traffic. To find that, there is a need to look past traditional SEO and directly to tag auditing, which is where ObservePoint comes in.

ObservePoint founders Rob Seolas and John Pestana both come from solid web traffic and analytics backgrounds. Seolas was the co-founder of iLead Media an internet sales lead generation startup that was acquired by Think Partnership in 2005. Pestana was co-founder at Omniture which was acquired by Adobe in 2009.

Now they’ve put their collective smarts together to help companies optimize not just their sites but right down to the tags.

We got a chance to talk with ObsevePoint. Check out the rest of the interview below.

What does your company do?

ObservePoint keeps tag and web analytic data honest by going through a site and auditing each page’s tags to verify whether or not they are firing and reporting accurate data

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds

When starting ObservePoint both founders Rob Seolas and John Pestana set out to solve the problem of correcting the accuracy in online marketing and web analytics data. Each founder had a solid background in understanding how companies measure web traffic and produce web leads.

Where are you based?

ObservePoint is located in the Silicon Slopes, or more officially Provo, Utah.

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

Provo is a city about an hour south of Salt Lake City, which has a vibrant start-up community. It was been named to a number of business lists as a top place to start a business. Forbes named it at the No. 1 place for business and careers.

Provo’s technology and start-up pedigree runs deep and many of the area’s tech startups can be linked to Novell and WordPerfect. Since the Novell and WordPerfect days the Silicon Slopes – a name coined by John’s previous partner and Omniture co-founder, Josh James– there have been hundreds of tech companies that have launched and gone on to be acquired by bigger out-of-state companies or private equity. In the past six years that list includes Altiris (by Symantec for $800M), Omniture (by Adobe for $1.2B), Ancestry.com (by Permira Funds for $1.6B), Vivint (by Blackstone Group for $2B), among others.

In addition to the acquisitions, Angels and VCs have been active and investing heavily in Provo-area companies like Qualtrics ($70M), InsideSales.com ($35M), and Domo ($125M) to name a few. Other non-Utah-based companies like eBay, Adobe, HP and American Express have established significant presences in the area.

Add the fact that Google Fiber recently chose Provo, and it’s been a pretty good year for the region.

What problem do you solve?

Most web analysts know that their analytics data is dirty, but they either don’t know how to detect and clean it up or they know they and their superiors have come to expect it and sweep it under the rug.

A major hurdle is the thousands of hours it would take to go through each page to check AND test each tag to make sure it is firing correctly. At least that’s how it was before ObservePoint came around. What we’ve found is that on average, websites have a 20 percent error rate in their web analytics data due to tagging problems.

When we tell a web analyst they show us the tags and proudly state that the tags are there. However, they don’t really know whether the tag is firing and reporting the data accurately. In addition to tags not being present or firing on the page we have found that some sites have a huge inflation rate because of tag duplication on one page and each of them report that as unique traffic. This inaccurate data is troublesome because companies are basing major decisions on this information.

ObservePoint automates the auditing for all the tags on a website. We run a thorough scan of the site and test each tag to make sure it is firing. After that we present reports of the pages that have problems so they know what they need to fix.

Why now?

The idea and the development and testing of the technology started in 2007. However, we believed that the issue would become more prominent in the next few years and that foresight is paying off because companies are starting to realize that they can’t continue to make decisions based on bad data.

Also, the tag management space has shone a bright light on the headache that is managing each tag. Companies are starting to add a tag management platform, but that can create a false sense of security when it comes to data quality. Really, tag management platforms need to be audited the same way an analytics tag does to ensure that data is collected correctly.

We are called into a lot of new tag management implementations to audit them and companies are shocked when they find that the tag management system hasn’t solved their data quality issues.

What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?

Besides having record revenue years, one of our major milestones happened earlier this year when we were invited into Adobe’s Enterprise Solution Partner Program. That was a big step and one that John and Rob hoped would happen since the beginning.

What are your next milestones?

On the technology front, we’re working on adding the #1 requested capability – that is to audit tags that fire on click. (Currently, only page-load tags are catalogued.) This requires some major back-end technology changes, and that will add a new and improved user interface, better performance, comparison to historical data, and a slew of other features.

We recently passed a milestone of no longer thinking of ourselves as being in start-up mode as we are in growth mode. We’ve been taking on clients for about two years, but our technology is already much more mature than that. We’re well ahead of everyone else in terms of understanding tagging issues and as such, we are now taking on customers at our fastest pace ever and we don’t expect that to slow down for the foreseeable future

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

All our information is on our website: www.observepoint.com. Also, we have a free Chrome plug-in tool that we’ve developed that allows Web analysts and QA people to see the tags on their site right inside the browser. It can be found on our website –http://www.observepoint.com/debugger

People can also learn more through our social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Say It With A Song Using Utah Startup Gigg [sxsw]

Are you one of those people that likes to quote song lyrics when talking to people? Perhaps you were a child of the 90’s and made “mix tapes” for everyone and everything? Well there’s a startup in Utah called Gigg that puts that nostalgia back into your life.

The best part?

You don’t even need to know the whole lyric.

With Gigg you can use their app and find the song lyrics you want by artist, title or even a couple of words you think are in the song. From there the app finds the song that you’re looking for, lets you send a message with the lyric and links the recipient to where they can purchase the song.

It was great running into the Gigg team at the SXSW trade show, right smack in the middle of SXSWi and SXSW music.

For our demonstration of the app the lyric was “I Like Big Butts” and it quickly found Sir Mix A lot and a bunch of other great lyrics that would make great messages.

The app is fun and for those who like to send sappy love songs, it could be just what you’re looking for.

Check out the interview below and for more info visit gigg.com

Check out more SXSW 2013 Startup Coverage here.

Silicon Slopes Startup Speakerfy Is Turning Devices Into Speakers Everywhere [sxsw]

Have you caught onto the latest phenom in night clubs and parties? Yes I’m talking about the silent disco or the headphone party. These are parties where everyone is listening to the same music, typically being spun by a dj, but using headphones. We’ve been to headphone parties in Memphis, New York, Baltimore and of course on 6th street at SXSW.

The great thing about headphone parties is there is no outer noise and no need for someone to call the cops and complain. The bad part is the upkeep of the wireless headphone equipment.

Well… Utah startup Speakerfy has the solution. Now keep in mind that Speakerfy isn’t just about the headphone party we’ll go over a bunch of uses later. For the example of the headphone party though, Speakerfy allows any wifi connected smartphone to turn into a speaker. It supports up to 250 devices.

So now, if you’re holding a “silent disco” you can use Speakerfy and send the audio through everyone’s personal phone and they can use their own headphones or earbuds to join in the party. (if someone wrote a text communication app on top that would solve the anti-social part of the silent disco).

So all of the devices on the same Speakerfy hear the exact same audio at the exact same time.

Here are some other great uses for Speakerfy:

– Presentations at conferences
– Walking tours
– Museum tours
– your own personal radio station
– sharing music on the bus

the uses are really endless.

For more of how Speakerfy works check out the video interview from SXSW below:

Utah Startup: HeadCase Fighting Global Poverty With Head Phones?

Joshua Fairbairn and his team of co-founders at Utah startup HeadCase have a lofty goal. They are going to contribute to the fight against world poverty by selling headphones. Of course selling products and tying them into charities is nothing new, however Fairbairn is trying to put a new spin on the concept, launching their “premium” headphones with a direct tie in to a different charity with each model.

The company is calling their philanthropic headphone campaign #MoreThanMusic.

On the social side of things HeadCase is using the slacktivist model to donate health kits to children in need, shoes, aftercare for victims of human trafficking, vaccinations for Polio and pumps for farmers in Kenya.

On the headphone side of things, the HeadCase headphones come in a variety of colors. The company also boasts that they are durable, stylish and lightweight. Best of all the 50mm speaker drivers used in every pair of headphones are built at the same factory as Senheiser and Dre Beats.

Combine the two and you have a recipe for sound social entrepreneurship.

The charities that HeadCase has aligned themselves with are; One Day’s Wages, Soles4Souls, The Global Poverty Project, Free The Children and The Adventure Project.

Elyakim Samuel (CEO), and Samantha Bruandet (CFO) round out the founding team of socially conscious entrepreneurs.

We got a chance to interview Fairbairn, check out our interview below.

Utah Startup: Taxi, The Easiest Way To Present Online? INTERVIEW

Utah Startup Taxi has come to the rescue to anyone who needs to do online presentations. Whether you’re sharing a presentation for a meeting, sharing a presentation with a potential client, or need to send your pitch deck to a bunch of potential investors, Taxi may be the answer that you’re looking for.

Taxi lets users set up online presentations quickly and effortlessly. Taxi prides itself on simplicity with no need to set up plugins, no worrying about firewalls and no worrying that people on your conference call can’t see your screen. All you need to use Taxi is a web browser.

Need to share your presentation with someone on their mobile device? No worries, because it’s browser based the mobile experience is just as fluid on a smartphone or tablet, as it is on a desktop or laptop.

Taxi also offers seamless integration with HighRise so if you’re a High Rise user you’re still in business.

They offer a free version that allows you to share your presentation with one attendee at a time. They have affordable pricing plans all the way up to 100 attendees (just $20/month).

We got a chance to interview Taxi. Check out the interview below:

Brandery Demo Day: Utah Startup CrowdHall PITCH VIDEO

We’ve really liked CrowHall even before we found out they were going to be part of the 2012 class at the Brandery. Their platform is a great way to let celebrities, public figures, politicians, bloggers and micro celebrities respond and interact with their following in a clean, branded manner that’s both organized and archivable.

The premise for the idea is great and they’ve been testing out the platform and in July they did a public test with “Bachelorette” winner Jef Holm. Holm sent out one tweet the day before the test saying that he would be taking questions on CrowdHall. He didn’t include a link to the site or the secret page that would hold his CrowdHall forum, but his fans were relentless, they went to the CrowdHall site, and founder the private page. The end result was that when Holm logged in for his CrowdHall session during the test he already had 29 questions waiting for him.

COO and co-founder Jordan Menzel pitched today at The Brandery’s Demo day at the Great American Ball Park. Menzel was decked out in a yellow t-shirt and cutoff shorts which they explained before the pitch was a “cost cutting measure”. While they have money committed they used all of the seed money working on validating their concept, and buying caffeine for their developer Nick.

The product looks great and hopefully it will be a household word in the 2016 election. Check out the pitch video below:

Linkage:

See what CrowdHall is all about here

Check out The Brandery Here

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Grow Utah Changes To Grow America Wants To Create 5M US Jobs Through Startups

Utah entrepreneur Alan E. Hall is a very successful business man. He is the founder and chairman of MarketStar and many other Utah based businesses. Hall is also rather philanthropic but rather than taking the easy route to philanthropy and contributing to the same few causes every year, he prides himself on teaching people to fish.

You know the old saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for the day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”. For the past six years through one way or another Hall has been teaching people to fish by investing in startups and entrepreneurs with a goal to create jobs. How many jobs? He hopes that through his newest effort Grow Utah,now known as Grow America, to add 5 million us jobs.

Thestandard.net says that Hall’s idea to start helping people came years ago when an acquaintance of his lost his job. That guy ended up working 3 part time jobs, accounting, working at a convenience store and delivering newspapers. Hall had one of his company supervisors hire that man and Hall personally funded the man’s salary until he was properly trained.

“And it dawned on me how many other people are unemployed or underemployed,” Hall says. “As a private citizen, I can give of my own wealth to inspire entrepreneurs to get up and running with their ideas, and jobs will be created. They will hire people.”

Grow America started out last year as Grow Utah. Hall kicked in $250,000 worth of awards and services that was divided between 9 startups. Grow America is working on one more session strictly based in Utah and then Hall plans to take the Grow America concept nationwide in April.

“The goal is to do everything we can, not just in Utah but around the country. In January, the prizes will be worth half a million dollars in cash and services.

Hall plans to grow and create 5 million US jobs within the next five years. For the nationwide rollout Grow America has enlisted corporate sponsors, Zion’s Bank, Comcast, Kunzler Law Group and the Utah Jazz.

Linkage:

For more info go here

Nibletz is the voice of startups “everywhere else” here are more startup stories from “everywhere else”

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After First Full Week At Brandery, Startup CrowdHall Is Already Gaining Popularity In Cincinnati

The CrowdHall Team Won The TechBury Pitch Wars Friday (photo: CrowdHall)

We talked with Utah startup CrowdHall a few weeks back. They had been selected for the Brandery incubator in Cincinnati which is one of the most popular incubators in the United States. We got to talk with co-founder Jordan Menzel right before the crew packed it up to move east for three months.

The Brandery’s 2012 session started on July 2nd and last week was their first full week in. CrowdHall has agreed to check in periodically throughout their experience in Cincinnati and at the Brandery. Their first check-in was a little late. Not only has the CrowdHall crew been working around the clock, but they were also busy competing in the BunBury festival’s TechBury pitch wars.

CrowdHall faced off against Brandery alumni VenturePax which we’ve also covered here at nibletz.com. The CrowdHall team rode their bikes through a seedy section of town at nearly midnight, back to their apartment with a $1,000 check,emerging as the winners of the pitch wars.

This is how we described CrowdHall earlier:

Imagine if you could mix a social network, reddit,crowdsourced answers and a town hall meeting into one platform that wasn’t an absolute train wreck. Now imagine if you could use that platform to host virtual conferences, discussions with elected officials, or even with your blog audience (yeah we can’t wait to try it). Now stop imagining because that’s what the founders of CrowdHall are doing.

Here’s what the team has to say after being at the Brandery since July 2

So give us a little insight how was your first full week at the Brandery?

We’re kids in a candy store. As a startup, you learn to get by with limited support, limited resources, and having to fight for mentors’ time. So when we showed up to the Brandery, we were able to turn on fire hose and start drinking. We’ve loved being around the fellow startups, working with fascinating mentors, and of course taking advantage of the nitty gritty legal help. The collaborative office space is great too, and is a vast improvement to our last corporate office (the public library). We’ve quickly seen that workshops, pitches, BBQ’s, ball games, late nights of coding, and 14 hour work days will be our lives for the next few months.

Now that you’re finally at the Brandery what’s one thing that has surprised you guys about CrowdHall?

We are all blown away with how much more we can get done when we are all working in the same space. Early in our development, our team was in DC, NYC, and San Diego. With us all together, the increase in productivity and turn-around is insane. After having worked for government agencies and big companies, nothing is more fun than having an idea in the morning, a team brainstorming session on it over lunch, and testing it out live on the site at night, with no layers of bureaucracy in between.

What’s the best piece of honest feedback you’ve received from either the Brandery folks or a mentor?

With the technology we’ve built, there are literally a hundred different applications and features that we have brainstormed. In addition, every time we talk to somebody new they get excited about some new way they can see themselves using the platform.

When we sat down with our mentor Tim Schigel (Founder of ShareThis and Head of Digital Strategy for the Republican Party), he really pushed us to focus in on one application at a time, and prioritize the development based on working out one functionality, then going to market with that. We can’t try to do everything at once.

Have you pivoted yet?

There is a lot of grey area in that question. We have always been aware of various applications for our large audience moderating features and have generally had a clear strategy on which applications we wanted to focus on first. However, now that we have
met with mentors from Twitter, Anaheiser Busch, ShareThis etc…. we have definitely taken a step back to revisit our development priorities. But in terms of the core product, we are still about allowing crowds to communicate in a democratic and organized manner. Talk to us next week, we’ll probably give you a totally different answer.

What’s on the agenda for next week?

Organization!! With new interns, new mentors, new ideas, and new resources, we are about to dive into improving our teams structure and flow. Nick, our developer, is probably tired of getting pulled away from the code with every single thought/idea/recommendation. While it’s fun to be all in the space, it’s not always the most efficient.

In terms of our product, we are getting ready for a pretty sweet soft beta launch coming up soon so keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook to see what we are scheming.

Is there anything the public can help you guys with?

CrowdHall is coming! Sign up for our beta launch at www.crowdhall.com. Once we launch, you’ll be able to communicate with those already on the site, and also recommend any people/organizations of interest you’d like to have a conversation with. We’ll reach out to them to join CrowdHall as your recommendations draw support.

Has your experience at the Brandery been what you expected so far? Harder? Easier?

It has been more all-consuming than we expected, but in a way, it’s actually easier. We are so excited to be working on the company and seeing how much it progresses with the time we put in, that none of us wants to be doing anything else. So even though the commitment is crazy, it’s only like that because that’s the way we want it. One hilarious experience was competing in the Techbury Pitch Wars at the Bunbury Music Festival, after 5 rounds of pitching against great companies we were stoked to have won, and that meant biking home with a giant novelty check and an unnecessarily large trophy.

Linkage:

See what the talk is all about at CrowdHall’s site here

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Utah CleanTech Startup: EcoScraps Announces Product Availability In Southern California

Back in April we reported on an exciting startup in Utah that was founded by former Brigham Young students. They came up with the idea after eating at an all you can eat breakfast buffet and asking themselves where all the wasted food goes. Naturally we can’t really box up that uneaten food off people’s plates and send it to starving kids in third world countries. I’m sure we would if we could. However the team behind EcoScraps found something clean, green and good for the environment to do with that scrap food.

EcoScraps now takes food waste from grocery stores, and farms and has it hauled to their compost facilities for a discounted tipping fee compared to the dump. EcoScraps then takes the food waste and turns it into compost and potting soil. They sell their compost and potting soil in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and now Southern California.

Today the startup announced that their soil and compost products will be available in 40 big box home improvement stores in Southern California.

The company redirects 100 tons of produce waste each day from local grocery stores and restaurants. The waste is diverted away from landfills and turned into compost products, which can now be found in over 40 big box home improvement stores across Southern California.

“Every three days in America, enough food is thrown away to fill the Rose Bowl,” said EcoScraps CEO and co-founder Dan Blake. “By repurposing leftover fruit and vegetables, we are doing our part to take that valuable organic material and return it to good use. Our expansion into Southern California affords us the opportunity to put more food scraps to use, protecting the environment and enhancing gardens in America.”

EcoScraps is a no-chemical, no-poop alternative to typical manure- and chemical-based soil products on the market. The company’s products not only contain twice the amount of essential soil nutrients, but are safe for kids and pets too. By establishing a new infrastructure model for creating organic compost, EcoScraps has been able to quickly expand and reach a wide variety of consumers.

In June 2012, the World Bank released What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management, which reported that 810 million tons of organic waste will be generated this year alone. “America’s food waste accounts for 30 million tons, which is equivalent to 25 percent of all landfill waste in the U.S.,” Blake said. “This number is expected to almost double by 2025. EcoScraps takes the nutrients found in our fruits and vegetables and returns them back to the soil instead of letting them waste away in landfills. This creates healthier plants and a healthier planet.”

Linkage:

Learn more about EcoScraps here at their website

Here’s a story we ran in April about EcoScraps

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Utah Startup: CrowdHall Moving To Cincinnati For The Brandery INTERVIEW

The founders hail from “everywhere else” As you’ll see in the interview there we could credit this startup to Salt Lake City, San Diego, Washington DC and now Cincinnati, as CrowdHall was selected for the 2012 class at the Brandery.

At the Brandery CrowdHall will refine their product and make a go of a truly unique startup.

CrowdHall works like this:

Say you’re an active citizen and you noticed in your neighborhood all the playground equipment was getting old and dangerous. You would probably write city hall or call city hall and get back some kind of form response that says they’ll look into it. You may try again and get the same answer. Heck you could even go to the city hall meeting and get the same answer, they’ll look into it.

Now with CrowdHall you may be able to find your local City Councilman. You could ask the City Councilman about the playground equipment. Then you could tell your friends that you asked on CrowdHall and they could in turn, come and vote up your question. Now your Councilman sees that you have a very valid issue. He can answer you and all the other neighbors you recruited in a one on one way but in a public facing setting where the other could also comment.

Now if the Councilman agrees with you, he could help get the playground equipment issue resolved, voila!

This can also be used for bloggers to source questions in a similar way and discussion format, even rock stars, entertainers, business speakers, and just about anyone who has a “crowd” could benefit from CrowdHall.

As the CrowdHall team prepares to move to Cincinnati next week for this session of the Brandery, we got a chance to talk with Jordan Menzel, Co-Founder and COO of CrowdHall. Check that interview out, after the break
Read More…

California Startup: PortfolioDashboards Helps Investors Manage Startup Investments

If you’re an angel investor, venture capitalist or have any other kind of hand in investing in startups and early stage companies, than you know that tracking your investments isn’t as easy as you would like it to be. That is until now.

Orange County California based startup PortfolioDashboards offers something that angel investors and VC’s have been longing for. Their problem, was to find a better way to track investments in startup companies and they’ve done it.

PortfolioDashboards was founded by Ancestry.com alumnus Kerry Kane. Kane ran digital marketing at Ancestry.com and has had his hand in many different startup companies. Ancestry.com alumni are starting all kinds of companies. Just over a week ago we interview Jesse Gant, also an ancestry.com alumni who started Recmnd.Me

We got a chance to interview Kane about PortfolioDashboards. Check that interview out, after the break.

Shark Tank Startup From Utah Wins National Small Business Video Contest

You may have seen Kisstixx on ABC’s Shark Tank. The innovative new lip balms that have some kind of attraction, secret formula that makes kissing more compatible, was able to garner a $200,000 investment from Mark Cuban. When Cuban is asked about Shark Tank startups that he really likes, he often references Kissstix.

The Utah Valley University student founders of Kisstixx, Dallas Robinson and Mike Buonomo, shared their story via video in a small business contest and were one of four winners selected by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“We are so proud of Dallas and Mike. They are the quintessential entrepreneurs; innovative, driven, disciplined and always learning,” said Shauna Theobald, director of UVU’s Woodbury School of Business Entrepreneurship Institute to UtahPulse.com. “In spite of their rapid ascent into the national spotlight, they remain committed to connecting and collaborating with other startups and with proven mentors. They’ve demonstrated the power of leveraging the resources and networks of the UVU startup community.”

More after the break
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Utah Startup CompleteSpeech Wins $100k For Building A Better Retainer

An orthodintic/speech pathology startup in Salt Lake City Utah has come home with the $100,000 prize in Utah’s 2012 Springboard Business Competition.

Dan Smith and Dave Larsen, the founders of CompleteSpeech won the competition for their patented retainer called the SmartPalete.

SmartPalete is an orthodontic retainer that has electronic sensors built into the plate. Those sensors record the movements of the tongue and mouth when the patient is talking.

Speech Pathologists can take the recordings made with the SmartPalate retainer and analyze them. They can also use the recordings to show the patient the movements of the mouth and tongue while they are speaking.

The prize is a mix of $50,000 in cash and the other $50,000 in valuable business services. The competition doesn’t stop there though. Smith and Larsen will compete three more times over the next year to win up to $250,000 more in cash and prizes and the honor of being the state champions.

CompleteSpeech beat out a field of over 1,000 initial entrants and then 12 finalists with a tough field of judges including Fraser Bullock, managing director of Sorenson Capital; Amy Anderson, chief executive officer of Mediconnect; and SkullCandy CEO Jeremy Andrus.

“If you have a good idea, you need to plan it out (and) get all the resources that you can around you,” said Larsen, chief executive officer of CompleteSpeech told ksl.comYou need to believe in yourself and go do it.”

Utah Startup: Kin2 Shows Degrees Of Separation For New Dark Shadows Movie

If you’ve ever wanted to know how you could or could not be connected to a celebrity or other big name, you may get a chance to find out sooner than later, thanks to a Utah startup called Kin2. The premise for Kin2 is connecting family trees to other family trees. The service draws from over 250 million names from a previous endeavor called Onegreatfamily.com

But what does this have to do with the new Dark Shadows movie? Well an executive of Warner Brothers, the movie’s producer, saw Kin2 in action at South By Southwest and thought the technology would make a great engagement piece for their online marketing efforts.

Now fans of Dark Shadows can use a customized version of Kin2 to see all the Collins family connections from the movie. The Salt Lake Tribune was able to use a photo of Barnabus Collins (played by Johnny Depp) within the Kin2 special app, to find out that he is the great great uncle of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (played by Michelle Pfeiffer). They are 32 degrees apart.

More after the break
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