OnPoint

Hiring: UI Engineer

Kevin Iverson — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:43:44 -0500

Viewpoints Network is hiring a seasoned UI engineer to join our technology team in Chicago. We are passionate about changing the way people find products and share their product experiences, and we need a front-end specialist to help lead the charge.

We develop using the Ruby on Rails stack, git for source control, Linux development boxes and your workstation/tools of choice. One of the biggest Rails sites on the web, we follow the agile method of software engineering and deploy our own code biweekly.

We are looking for a front-end expert who is also a true software engineer. You should understand the entire web application stack and software development life cycle while specializing on the user-interface layer. In short, you should put the “V” in “MVC.”

You should also:

Be able to work effectively with information architects, designers, product mangers, back-end developers and other front-end programmers.
Thoroughly understand responsive design, device independence, web standards and SEO-focused front-end engineering.
Possess serious JavaScript fu and be comfortable working with any JS framework.
Be comfortable enough with the Rails stack to hand-edit ERB templates, helpers and controllers. Bonus points if you’re comfortable wading into models, plugins, etc.
Understand how to architect CSS for maintainability and flexibility rather than blindly pixel-matching a comp.
Know more about HTML5 than just the buzzwords and understand how to implement it today, even on Internet Explorer.
Be more than a code monkey. You should be able to set and follow coding standards, help pick frameworks, mentor colleagues, understand business objectives, and run code reviews.
Excel at producing high-quality work on aggressive time lines.
Bonus points for being an accomplished command-line programmer or open-source participant.

We will provide you with:

Challenging work and the chance to learn every day from a group of high-performance peers in a tight-knit environment.
A flexible schedule including core office hours, blocks of meeting-free development time, and the chance to work from home one day a week.
Self-directed “idea time” to explore new technologies and pet projects on your own every Friday afternoon.
A competitive salary and bonus program and full benefits including health, dental, vision, and 401(k).

Ready for the challenge? Please send your resume to kiverson@viewpoints.com

CEC Selects Viewpoints as as Finalist for the 2011 Merrick Momentum Award

mattmoog — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:55:46 -0500

The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC) today announced the three finalists for its prestigious Merrick Momentum Award:

GrubHub – an internet startup that connects consumers with restaurants that deliver to their neighborhood.
Ifbyphone – a voice-based marketing automation platform that helps companies drive sales, reduce collection cycles, measure marketing effectiveness and improve customer experience.
Viewpoints – an internet startup that operates a hosted technology service for user reviews and social engagement as well as a leading user reviews and advice website.

The Merrick Momentum Award recognizes the entrepreneurial stars that have demonstrated momentum since their inception and are poised for continued growth. The Award is named after Merrick Ventures, LLC, the company that has sponsored it for four straight years.

“This year’s finalists represent three of the best companies in Chicago – all with innovative services, disruptive business models and talented management teams. Based on the companies’ revenue traction and near-term growth plans, they are all well positioned to become our city’s next big success stories,” said Michael Ferro, Chairman and CEO, Merrick Ventures, LLC.

Last year’s Merrick Momentum Award winner, Sittercity, the inventor of online caregiving, recently received $22.6 million in equity financing to assist with expansion both domestically and overseas. Previous winners include Eved and SAVO, companies that are making tremendous strides in their industry while creating economic value and jobs at a time when others find it most difficult.

“There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur in Chicago than today,” said Kevin Willer, President & CEO, CEC. “The success of companies like Sittercity, Eved and SAVO demonstrate the continued momentum that is building in Chicago’s entrepreneurial community.”

The Merrick Momentum Award winner will be announced at the CEC’s 2011 Momentum Awards Dinner on September 14 at the Hilton Chicago. At the event, Brad Keywell, Co-Founder and Director, Groupon & Managing Partner, Lightbank and Eric Lefkofsky, Co-Founder and Chairman, Groupon & Managing Partner, Lightbank, will be honored with the CEC’s 2011 Entrepreneurial Champion Award.

http://www.builtinchicago.org/profiles/blogs/cec-selects-three-growth

http://www.chicagolandec.org/content/news/momentum_awards.asp

Hiring: Ruby on Rails Engineer

Kevin Iverson — Fri, 20 May 2011 11:35:26 -0500

Viewpoints Network is hiring Ruby on Rails engineers to join our technology team in Chicago. We are passionate about changing the way people share their product experiences and looking for ways to connect them with the best product. We develop using Ruby and Rails and are one of the larger rails sites on the web. MySQL and Redis keep our data straight and fast. We manage our work with agile methods and deploy our own code.

We are looking for people who:

Have production experience with Ruby on Rails
Write clean, DRY Ruby code
Understand and have a passion for testing and TDD (unit, functional, and integration tests)
Excited by creating applications others use and love
Design and implement projects from the database layer to the web tier
Remember their first computer more fondly then their first car
Optimize application execution times using detailed understanding of Rails, SQL, and caching techniques
Work fluidly in a Linux based environment
Are pragmatic and always looking to improve themselves and what they do
Understand code management techniques using git
Have a strong passion for technology
Can think of at least two times they helped solve a production problem and the satisfaction that went along with it
Able to produce high quality work on aggressive time lines
Don’t want to rely on others to deploy their code to production
Work with other developers to plan and execute integration with other components
Thrive working in an agile environment
Bonus: Have experience with MySQL, Redis, Endeca, and shell scripting
Bonus: Experience working on open source projects
Bonus: Knowledge of CSS/Javascript/Front end technology
Bonus: Have experience working with cloud environments. Not the kind that pop out of the wall when you need to edit a family photo, but real ones.

What we provide you:

Challenging work and the chance to learn every day from a high performance group of peers in a tight nit environment
Work from home one day a week
Competitive salary and bonus program
Self directed project time every Friday afternoon
Full benefits including health, dental, vision, and 401(k)

Ready for the challenge? Please send your resume to kiverson@viewpoints.com

Office Space Available in River North

mattmoog — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:45:30 -0500

Are you running a cool digital technology company and looking for a space to expand? Would you like to work in River North where you are steps away from the brown line and 10 minutes from the Metra station? Do you like brick and timber offices with open floor plans, glass walls and communal kitchens?

Viewpoints has about 40 open desks, 3 conference rooms and 2 offices open and is looking to rent them out at competitive rates to starts up who need space to grow. The pricing is real simple. $400 a desk with a 5 desk minimum. Shared conference room or dedicated conf rooms or offices for an extra fee. Looking for 6 to 18 month committments. Call Matt Moog at 312 953 2478 if you are interested or e-mail me at matt@viewpoints.com

Pictures below

Lobby and lunch room area coming off the elevator

Shared kitchen and lunch room - seating for 25+

One long paired programming table

Two large offices that can also double as conference rooms

1 Eight Person Conference room

2 Phone Booths for one or two people

Hiring - VP of Sales for Viewpoints Network

mattmoog — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:17:31 -0500

Job summary

The Vice President of Sales for Viewpoints Network reports to the CEO as a member of the Senior Leadership Team. This role requires energy, ambition, a razor sharp mind, great communication skills, people management experience, extensive digital media sales chops, a passion for social media and innovative business models and a personality that will thrive in a fast paced, constantly changing entrepreneurial environment.

Viewpoints Network, a leading provider of consumer reviews is on a growth trajectory to triple our current size and become a top 100 web property with 10 million monthly users within the next 24 months. In doing so we will create significant value for our users, customers, shareholders and employees. We stand at the intersection of four of the most important drivers of the digital age: interactive advertising, ecommerce, social media and mobile. In short, for the right person ready to step up to the challenge of driving 100%+ annual revenue growth, this is a career changing opportunity.

Based in Chicago or potentially NYC.

About Viewpoints Network

Viewpoints Network is one of the largest and fastest growing online publishers of consumer reviews for home and family products. Viewpoints.com has 650,000+ registered members, 2.9 million monthly users and has posted 70%+ annual traffic and revenue growth since its September 2007 launch. Proctor & Gamble, Whirlpool, Sears, Walgreens, Wal-Mart and many other leading brands are among our satisfied customers. Viewpoints offers clients an opportunity to reach category specific (i.e. washing machines) “in-market” consumers who are actively looking for information to make a purchase decision and “social influencers” who have demonstrated a propensity to talk about products and share their opinions with their social network.

Viewpoints also hosts and manages MySears.com, MyKmart.com and the community for Craftsman tools on behalf of Sears Holding.

About our Advertising Opportunities

Viewpoints offers Targeted Media opportunities that allow advertisers to reach in-market consumers while they are actively in the process of researching a purchase decision; we believe this is one of the best opportunities to drive brand awareness, traffic, and sales. Further, our clients will reach a coveted consumer: female, aged 25-54, who shops online, is active in social media, has children and owns a home. We offer advertisers extraordinary targeting options – clients can target campaigns at the category, sub-category, product, brand, review, or reviewer level. Marketers can advertise around their own reviews or their competitors, or both, and we do all of this via IAB standard units or custom, high impact rich media and takeover formats as well as custom sponsorship opportunities.

Through our Social Influencer programs, we help clients harness the power of genuine consumer word-of-mouth. Here, we help brands identify their target consumers and help them experience their product (via samples, trials, contests, surveys) in exchange for posting an unbiased review. These highly influential consumers generate awareness, excitement and sales by reviewing their experience and sharing their opinions with their own social network and the entire Viewpoints community. What’s more, Viewpoints amplifies reviewers’ word-of-mouth by optimizing their reviews and recommendations for search traffic, extending their reach through Facebook and Twitter, and featuring testimonials in follow-up media campaigns.

Brands who have taken advantage of these programs include: Kenmore, Whirlpool, Maytag, Kitchenaid, Pampers, Puff’s, Kraft, Pedigree, Tide, Bounce, Walmart, Walgreens, Sears, Kmart, Jergens, FiberPlus, Ghirardelli, Symantec, and more.

Primary Responsibilities

Achieve annual revenue targets and manage future revenue growth rates to meet or exceed traffic growth rates
Manage sell through and optimization of ad inventory. Develop a strategy to maximize CPM, RPM, RPV for brand and performance revenue
Manage and expand as necessary current team of 3 sales execs, 1 account manager and 1 traffic manager.
Design and manage commission plan
Allocate accounts and/or territories or customer segments among the sales team
Have excellent communication skills. With your team, manager and across departments as well as with clients.
Be an individual contributor. Take on several large agencies and accounts to develop strategic partnerships with them.

Secondary Responsibilities

Work with outside designer and copy writers to create marketing campaigns targeted at advertisers and agencies and associated materials (web site, e-mail, direct mail etc)
Work with product managers to create new ad products or other new revenue streams
Cultivate a large network of contacts at agencies, clients and partners to use as a sounding board for new opportunities, develop strategic relationships and to help with recruiting

Job qualifications

Great sales skills and ability to build executive level relationships
Demonstrated and proven people and team management
A strong familiarity with digital media sales
Self directed, proactive and confident
Ability to form strong points of view with the intellectual honesty to change your mind when presented with new information or better arguments.
A strategic mind. Be able to look beyond current customers and ways of doing business and see broader market opportunities
Willingness to roll up your sleeves and get things done yourself. Everyone at Viewpoints is an individual contributor.

Salary and benefits

Base + bonus + options.
Health and Dental insurance, 401k, vacation plan, and bonus.
Flexible hours and ability to work from home on Wednesday or Friday

Are you up for the challenge?

Sell me – matt(at)viewpoints.com
312 447 6111

The future of marketing in a short and inspiring video

mattmoog — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 10:47:43 -0600

PHD put together this great video which any marketer out there who is stuck in the old way of thinking should listen and watch and share with their colleagues. Here a Viewpoints we believe that consumer reviews are an essential part of what this video envisions as the needs of the next generation of consumers.

Hiring: Ops/Sys Admin Guru

Kevin Iverson — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:39:44 -0600

Viewpoints Network is the fastest growing consumer reviews site on the web. We are looking for an operations/system administration guru to join our technology team to help continue moving our operational environments forward. Our site traffic is doubling year over year and we are one of the largest Rails sites on the web. If the following sounds like you, we should talk.

Have used Linux for so long the idea of not being able to have a *nix server in your own house seems strange to you.
Have experience working with cloud environments. Not the kind that pop out of the wall when you need to edit a family photo, but real ones.
Can configure Apache, nginx, a load balancer and have done so outside of work.
Can compile a kernel and chew gum at the same time.
Skilled at building RPMs or similar packages. Have a strong perspective on the value of packaging vs. just installing software.
Can maintain and spec hardware in your sleep.
The words iostat, vmstat, and proc bring back memories of at least two great production issues you personally solved.
Understand TCP/IP fundamentals like the back of your hand.
Have experience with MySQL, and still use it anyway.
Experience with scripting languages (extra credit for Bash and Ruby experience.)
Deep understanding of at least one monitoring system. Understanding of other monitoring systems and ideas about what would make an even better one.
Excited with the opportunity to closely work with developers in a tight knit operation.
Work well with a variety of opinions and perspectives not all matching your own. Willing to be proven wrong.
Understand the fundamentals of continuous integration and continuous deployment.

Interested? Send your resume to kiverson@viewpoints.com to find out more.

Viewpoints 2010 Year In Review

mattmoog — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:46:26 -0600

As the year comes to a close, I am pleased to report that 2010 was another banner year for Viewpoints. Traffic to our sites grew by 65%. Throughout the year Viewpoints helped more than 45 million people harness the power of consumer reviews to help shoppers make more informed purchase decisions. We could not have done any of this without our amazing staff (now up to 55+ people) and the 500,000 contributors who wrote reviews, answered questions, participated in forums, and ultimately delivered a compelling combination of content, community and commerce. Through their passion, creativity and commitment we were able to add nearly 1 million new users in the just last 90 days, hitting 4.9 million monthly users in December.
We feel fortunate to be part of the massive changes happening in media and commerce that are being driven by an increasingly socially connected and mobile enabled world.
Here are a few highlights from the year:
Viewpoints Answers launched to provide consumers with answers about specific products and categories

The Goods launched as the Viewpoints daily consumer products blog

Viewpoints ran branding campaigns featuring extensive use of rich media and high impact ownership opportunities for several Procter & Gamble brands, Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Kitchen Aid, Moen, and Whirlpool, among many others.

Viewpoints also launched Social Influencer programs that created thousands of reviews and positive Word-of-Mouth for Phillips Norelco, Norton, Kelloggs, Bounce, Ghirardelli, & Jergens.

Facebook integration via Facebook Connect, Facebook Like button and Facebook Sharing

Viewpoints User Choice Awards were awarded to the top 100 products of more than 100,000 products reviewed

Viewpoints won the Stevie Award for development of the MySears online community in the 8th annual American Business Awards.

The staff here at Viewpoints looks forward to an exciting year ahead where we get to work with the most passionate and creative group of contributors, advertisers and partners to help invent the future of media and commerce by bringing together the worlds of content, community and commerce.

We remain focused on our mission to harness the power of consumer reviews to help shoppers make smarter purchase decisions

Thanks

Matt Moog

Founder & CEO

Hiring: Internet Advertising Account Executive

Kim Smith — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:53:18 -0600

Job summary

Due to strong growth, we are looking for an Internet Advertising Account Executive to join our team to help connect marketers with our audience through branding and sponsorship programs as well as innovative Social Influencer Packages.

About our Advertising Opportunities

We offer Targeted Media opportunities that allow advertisers to reach in-market consumers while they are actively in the process of researching a purchase decision; we believe this is one of the best opportunities to drive brand awareness, traffic, and sales. Further, our clients will reach a coveted consumer: female, aged 25-54, who shops online, is active in social media, has children and owns a home. We offer advertisers extraordinary targeting options – clients can target campaigns at the category, sub-category, product, brand, review, or reviewer level. Marketers can advertise around their own reviews or their competitors, or both, and we do all of this via IAB standard units or custom, high impact rich media and takeover formats as well as custom sponsorship opportunities.

Through our Social Influencer programs, we help clients harness the power of genuine consumer word-of-mouth. Here, we help brands identify their target consumers and help them experience their product (via samples, trials, contests, surveys) in exchange for posting an unbiased review. These highly influential consumers generate awareness, excitement and sales by reviewing their experience and sharing their opinions with their own social network and the entire Viewpoints community. What’s more, Viewpoints amplifies reviewers’ word-of-mouth by optimizing their reviews and recommendations for search traffic, extending their reach through Facebook and Twitter, and featuring testimonials in follow-up media campaigns.

Advertisers who have taken advantage of these programs include: Kenmore, Whirlpool, Maytag, Kitchenaid, Pampers, Puff’s, Kraft, Pedigree, Tide, Bounce, Walmart, Walgreens, Sears, Kmart, Jergens, FiberPlus, Ghirardelli, Symantec, and more.

Job responsibilities

The Account Executive is responsible for building relationships with advertisers and advertising agencies.
You will prospect, present, negotiate and close sales.
Post sale, you will maintain relationships with your clients and help handle anything that comes up along the way.
In this role, you will sell premium CPM banner and sponsorship campaigns online and in email.
Additionally, you will creatively design, present, and sell customized “Social Influencer” packages that may include sampling, polling, surveys, review syndication and more.

Job qualifications

You have an interest and passion for social media and believe that the way companies interact with their customers is fundamentally changing. You regularly use social media sites in your own life, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc. You enjoy the environment and excitement of a start-up, the security of a well-funded organization with an experienced management team, and want to be part of a company with a mission and ethics you can believe in.

Specifically:

You have 1-4 years experience selling online media or working as an online media planner (with a desire to transfer to sales)
You have a network of contacts that you can leverage to hit the ground running.
You enjoy working with a team, but are largely self-directed, self-motivated, and self-sufficient.
You are very comfortable working with a team of committed, results oriented “A players” who work hard and have fun doing it. We are a team of doers. Everyone at every level rolls up their sleeves and contributes. You want to be a part of this.

Salary and benefits

This is a full time position; base + commission will be paid commensurate with experience. In addition, we offer a benefits package including Health and Dental insurance, 401k, vacation plan, and bonus.

Contact information

To apply, please send compelling cover letter, salary history, and resume to Kim Smith at: kim[at]viewpoints.com

The Consumer Decision Journey from Harvard Business Review

mattmoog — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:02:05 -0600

A fascinating article today in the Harvard Business Review about the changing expectations and behaviors of consumers. They way they make decisions, and the number of touch points that brands have with them is changing. The journey according to the author David Edelman, is more iterative and less reductive process that has four basic stages: a) Consider, b) Evaluate, c) Buy, - d) Enjoy, Advocate, Bond.

These insights are based on a study of 20,000 consumers. One of the fascinating factoids was that 60% of facial care customers would research a product online AFTER they had purchased it to learn more about what others thought of it, how they used it and that post purchase research would then have an impact on their loyalty and advocacy of the brand.

Another great quote was "Up to 90% of spend goes to advertising and retail promotions. Yet the single most powerful impetus to buy is often someone else's advocacy."