Our own CEO, Stephen Fells, recently spoke at the 2nd annual NYC Finance Expo. The event, held on April 4th at the New York City Bar Association building, was a huge success as detailed in the following video. Stephen will be speaking at the next event, we hope to see you there!

Stephen Fells

The article, published on April 6th, details his life story leading to the formation of Follr.

To read the full article click here.

Stephen Fells

The event is organized by Deborah Gonzalez, Esq, Law2sm founder. The organization provides services centered on social media and online legal risk audits, legal policy and protocol development, digital asset management and strategy and law training.

We will provide more information as the event gets nearer, in the interim visit the Law2sm Website: www.law2sm.com.

About Law2sm
Law2sm, LLC is a not just a new company, it’s a new movement – bringing to digital light the importance of awareness in regards to social media and the law. We help navigate the legal issues to the new digital and social media world.

We have three goals:

• Make the public aware that legal issues do exist with social media – from privacy to employment termination, from creative theft to identity theft, from corporate espionage to cyber- bullying, from reputation control to digital asset management, and everything in between.
• Provide resources to help clients reduce risk and liability – we do not say “No – don’t do social media.” We say “Yes, with the right protection and legal strategies.”
• Keep the legal profession at the top of its game with fulfilling client needs – including the physical, the tangible, and the digital.

Wappingers Falls, NY – April 2nd 2013 – Follr, Inc., a software company that provides Digital Identity Websites to individuals and corporations, today announced that it has signed an engagement agreement with Blossom Ventures to raise growth financing. The raise will be managed by George and James Salter, Partners at Blossom Ventures.

“We are thrilled to engage with Blossom Ventures to manage our seed financing,” stated Follr CEO Stephen Fells adding “We have worked with the company before and look forward to their contribution as we accelerate our technology and business development.”

About Follr, Inc.:
Follr, Inc. is a software company founded in 2011. Based in New York and California Follr provides Digital Identity Websites to individuals and corporations. Follr products include Follr Business and Follr Personal.

Follr Business is a local and mobile enabled, social media based Website solution without the need for technical or marketing expertise. Aggregating a brand’s Digital Identity, it is a suite that represents the sum of everything online about a business and brand. It is used by associations, professional bodies, membership groups and societies to better serve their members and students while simultaneously leveraging their network to reach a broader market.

Follr Personal aggregates all digitally available information about an individual making it available via one, short, domain name. It simultaneously serves as a social résumé, marketing aggregator and online business card.

About Blossom Ventures:
Blossom Ventures works with well-managed companies that need growth capital or strategic advice regarding potential acquisitions or the sale of their businesses.

They focus on innovative technologies or approaches to products, systems and services. Our businesses have the potential for both superior investment returns and meaningful community impact.

Cautionary Language Regarding Forward Looking Statements
This release and any attachments contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Federal securities laws, including Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, that involve risks and uncertainties. Words such as “will,” “believe,” “intend,” “potential” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include the quotations from management in this press release, as well as any statements regarding the Company’s anticipated financial results and strategic and operational plans. The Company’s actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Factors that may contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: the Company’s ability to deliver an adequate rate of growth and manage such growth; the impact of changes in government regulation and industry standards; the Company’s ability to maintain and increase the number of visitors to its websites; the Company’s ability to identify and manage acquisitions; the impact of the current economic climate on the Company’s business; the Company’s ability to attract and retain qualified executives and employees; the Company’s ability to compete effectively against others in the online marketing and media industry; the impact and costs of any failure by the Company to comply with government regulations and industry standards; and costs associated with defending intellectual property infringement and other claims. More information about potential factors that could affect the Company’s business and financial results is contained in the Company’s latest annual report. These forward looking statements are made as of today’s date and, except as otherwise required by law, the Company does not intend and undertakes no duty to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

We are pleased to announce that Follr is sponsoring the “Flight to Freedom Summit”, an event for entrepreneurs, investors and philanthropists “designed to showcase the Bay Area’s vibrant entrepreneurial community.”

The event, which is being held in Livermore, CA on August 1st, is organized by George and James Salter of Blossom Ventures. The company works with well-managed companies that need growth capital or strategic advice regarding potential acquisitions or the sale of their businesses. They focus on innovative technologies or approaches to products, systems and services from businesses that have the potential for both superior investment returns and meaningful community impact.

George explains:

“We believe that the success of the region is due to the open communication between academics, entrepreneurs, government officials, financiers and other specialists. We plan to propel the story along in an efficient manner by pre-planning private meetings and group introductions within a general networking format. All the invitees will be instant contributors that want to see the entrepreneurial and philanthropic communities grow. “

Other sponsors include Tesla, K1 Capital Advisors, Venture Greenhouse, Koch Capital Management and OURewards.

We will provide more information nearer the date, in the interim click here. For more information about Blossom watch this video:

When you search online do you find what you want? I’m guessing the answer is ‘yes’ but the fact is you don’t. Let me share a little known secret that might change your answer; you get to see what Google and Facebook (and increasingly many other companies) think you want to find.

What does that mean? It means that if I search for your name online I see different information than you do, even if we do exactly the same search. Companies filter what you see and that can result in a very biased view of the world. That’s a scary consideration especially when it comes to how you are presented online.

If you haven’t already ‘googled‘ yourself you should. If you haven’t already setup a Google Alert on your name (and your company and your products and your competitors) you should. More importantly you need to create a hub that accurately represents your story, told the way you want it to be told.

In the following brief TED.com video Eli Pariser, author of “The Filter Bubble,” talks about how personalized search might be narrowing our worldview:

In this video you learn how to add tags and where there they appear on your Follr Personal Digital Identity Website.

It is 1 minute long and is best viewed full screen. In order to see it full screen look in the bottom right corner and click this icon:

As reported on Business Insider “When the job market is tough, candidates need to try even harder to stand out.”

The value of traditional resumes has decreased over the last few years with more emphasis being place on online content provided by tools like Follr Personal. Some firms who are recruiting even go as far as to point out they don’t want resumes asking applicants to:

“send links representing their “Web presence,” such as a Twitter account or Tumblr blog.”

Over the next few weeks we will highlight some online resumes that have gone viral starting with Philippe Dubost, a Web product manager who wants to work for Amazon. He built a Website that looks just like an Amazon.com product page. It is still viewable online, just go to:

http://phildub.com/

The Website has been tweeted by Yahoo Finance, Y Combinator and nearly 300 others. The result? He got 150 job offers!

If you want to create your own online resume simply register with Follr.

This is a 60 second video best viewed full screen. In order to see it full screen look in the bottom right corner and click this icon:

Last month a very select and diverse group of business executives and thought leaders were invited to explore how social data can be more effectively harnessed to deliver higher performance. The group explored three primary topics: how social data can more effectively drive business performance, how social data can be harnessed to disrupt markets and industries, and how social data privacy standards might evolve.

In this first video Joshua Kauffman of The Quantified Self, talks about social media and big data as a disruptor.

Joshua explains:

“The first thing to realize is that social data is really personal data, it’s really data that is about us and data that is about us can come from so many different places. [] The scope is vast, in fact I would say the scope is all encompassing.”

He adds:

“The can generate and validate knowledge in the context of personal meaning. And so for large institutions and organizations the most important thing to contemplate right now is knowing that this is a mega trend, knowing that individuals are increasingly empowered with any number of new personal data tools. How can the large organizations and institutions empower those people in a way that is virtuous, in a way that has mutual benefit and ultimately in a way so that the individuals within these institution can be more productive and be doing it with more self knowledge?”

Businesses, colleges and organizations using Follr Digital Identity services get to leverage their staff, students and members to achieve these goals. Contact us today for more information.

This is a 60 second video best viewed full screen. In order to see it full screen look in the bottom right corner and click this icon:

Last week we announced the release of the new Follr Personal product. Now it’s time to look at it from a real estate perspective. A question first though.

When people search for you online (and you know they do before they ever meet you) what do they find?

Some other things to ponder. Assuming they find information that actually does relate to you (and not to a namesake) will they form a positive or negative opinion about your marketing ability, technical knowledge, your character?

Put another way – what is your online story?

Here’s a link to a real estate version of Follr Personal. It’s not for a real real estate agent but you will see that the story being told is detailed, current and therefore better represents the agent.

Things to focus on:

• The home page includes ‘Social Wall‘, a highly visual mashup of your (our your brokers) social media content. Click the ‘Full Screen’ button to see it in its full glory
• ‘My Listings‘ details a live feed of this agents single property Websites.
• The ‘About‘ tab allows you to highlight images and videos.
• The Website is responsive so it works on every mobile phone and tablet.
• It has a unique domain name, think YourName.com.
• The Website is also a document repository.
• And finally ‘Timeline‘ – a unique way to tell your story, your whole story.

We’ll be covering the product, features and benefits in more detail over the coming months. In the interim start telling your story today by clicking here.

If you enjoyed this post you’ll certainly enjoy these other ‘Just For Fun’ posts!

So we told you it was coming and it’s now here!

We are very proud to announce that we have released an entirely new Follr Personal Website product.

It includes:

Social Wall

Timeline

and is fully responsive.

We will be blogging about these features in more detail over the coming weeks and showing you lots of other cool things, in the interim here’s an example:

follr.me/steve

Create or update yours today!

Wappingers Falls, NY (January 4th, 2013) Follr, Inc., a SaaS (Service as a software) company specializing in Digital Identity, today announced the formation of an advisory board.

The seven person board consists of a diverse group that includes thought leaders, executives and connectors located in multiple countries. Collectively they will share their expertise and insight in Digital Identity, marketing and PR, technology, sales and other areas of interest to Follr and it’s customers world-wide.

Stephen Fells

The board is composed of the following members:

Joe Dahleen
Executive Vice President & Head of Mortgage Originations
Elevation Home Loans, LLC

Joe Dahleen

Joe has developed his skills in every aspect of modern strategic business management, including sales, software and project management, business process analysis, system design and system implementation. In regard to the mortgage lending space, he has strong in-depth knowledge of secondary marketing, loan production, and quality control procedures, including automated origination and compliance, e-signatures and e-vendor management, pre-emptive quality control and post-closing management. He also has experience in appraisal management portals, digital vaulting and private label, cloud-based business models. He is uniquely qualified to lead financial services companies in efforts to radically revamp their business strategies.

He is often called upon to speak before industry groups, most recently the Mortgage Bankers Association, Equifax Users Conference, SourceMedia Conferences, and the Fiserv Users Conference. He also sits on a number of advisory boards, including Zillow.com.

Muriel Deveillers
Advisor
LUMU Invest Sàrl.

Muriel Deveillers

The company targets seed and early stage high tech investments.

Tony Fish
Founder
iNeed

Tony Fish

Tony is passionate about technology and has a truly innovative flair. He is known for delivery, clear decision making, simple no-nonsense attitude, robust financial views, dealing with complexity and governance controls.

Tony, B-Eng MBA C-ENG FIET FCIM, is a consummate professional, acknowledged public speaker and avid supporter of early stage growth tech companies. He is also an accomplished author: “My Digital Footprint: a two sided business model where your privacy will be someone else’s business” Nov 2009 and has previously co-authored two books on mobile and innovation: “Mobile Web 2.0: the innovators guide to developing and marketing next generation wireless/mobile applications”, August 2006; and “OpenGardens, the innovators guide to mobile data industry”, December 2004.

Joan Lockwood
Start-up Advisor, Mentor, TEDexter, Social Software Marketing & PR
Sorapol

Joan Lockwood

Prior to that she worked in global marketing and PR for Seesmic, an algorithmic video platform that migrated into a twitter client, Kyte an online and mobile video platform for live and on-demand content and Piczo, a top teen social network come online photo blogging platform for teens prior to being acquired by Stardoll.

Joan is an avid connector of people and ideas with many years of marketing, brand management and PR experience in both the US and UK.

James Morgan
District Sales Manager
Staples

James Morgan

He has worked with Staples, SPRichards, Catskill Office Products, goTown, Anew Nutrition, and AgencyLogic. He was also a photojournalist in the US Army, Europe.

Monis Rahman
Chairman & CEO
Naseeb Networks

Monis Rahman

Mr. Rahman has previously founded and run several companies ranging from Internet startups to chip design consultancies. He has raised venture capital for two Internet startups in Silicon Valley, and has nine patents to his credit.

Mr. Rahman started his career at Intel Corporation where he was a key member of Intel’s microprocessor design team. He completed his undergraduate degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and did graduate work at Stanford University.

He has been featured by numerous magazines and newspapers including New York Times, CNN, InfoWorld, Red Herring, Infoweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Miami Herald, The Oakland Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Spider.

Jan Simmonds
Shareholder
Jan Mason Ltd

Jan Simmonds

He is always happy to connect with those that understand the entrepreneurial mindset and anyone that gets behind them.

For more information visit the Follr Website at: follr.com

About Follr, Inc.:
Follr, Inc. is a software company founded in 2011. Based in New York and California Follr provides Digital Identity Websites to individuals and corporations. Follr products include Follr Business, Follr Personal and Follr Community. Follr Business is a local and mobile enabled, social media based Website solution without the need for technical or marketing expertise. Aggregating a brand’s Digital Identity, it is a suite that represents the sum of everything online about a business and brand. Follr Personal aggregates all digitally available information about an individual making it available via one, short, domain name. It simultaneously serves as a social résumé, marketing aggregator and online business card. Follr Community helps associations, professional bodies, membership groups and societies better serve their members and students while simultaneously leveraging their network to reach a broader market.

Contact:

Follr, Inc.
Stephen Fells – CEO
(888) 201-5160
steve@follr.com

Get ready for fun while learning ONLINE at the Technology eSummit hosted by The Tech Byte. You won’t want to miss out on this full day of amazing speakers bringing you the latest technology-focused information. Speakers include Stacey Harmon, Maya Paveza and our very own Stephen Fells!

When:

Tuesday February 5th – 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Eastern time) and
Wednesday February 6th – 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Eastern time)

Sessions held online (and recorded). Stay in your jammies or dress up and attend from your office!

Registration Fees:

$FREE – The Tech Byte Elite & Ultimate Club Members
$35.00 – Standard Registration

You won’t believe the value at this cost. In addition to your reserved spot to attend all sessions held live, you will receive recordings of each session. They are yours to replay or to watch any session you miss. Limited Space – don’t wait!

Join us for sessions focused on technology, Digital Identity, Evernote, Facebook, Mobile & Cloud Applications and Contact Management Systems. You’ll hear Tips & Tricks; Tools to use; Mobile Apps; Best Practices and more that will help save you time and money and generate more income for you and your business. You’ll hear from a variety of experts sure to answer many questions you have about technology.

The Technology eSummit is for you if:

• You are overwhelmed with technology talk and you need straight forward direction to the best places to focus your time and energy.
• You want to hear what the experts have to say – all together in one place – and you don’t have to travel!
• You geek out on technology and you want to make sure you have the latest and greatest tools implemented.

…and hey! We will giving away many door prizes as well! Don’t wait! Save the date and reserve your space today.

Follr Business Includes ‘Social Stream’ Feature, an Innovative and Highly Visual Aggregation of Social Media Content

Wappingers Falls, NY (December 31st, 2012) Follr, Inc., today announced the release of Follr Business, a Web based SaaS (Software as a Service) product aimed at helping corporations create a local and mobile-enabled, social media based Web solution that aggregates their brand and Digital Identity. The product is the third released by the company joining Follr Personal and Follr Community.

A Follr Digital Identity business Website organizes and aggregates a company’s online information making it accessible via one memorable Website address. It additionally leverages employees and staff to protect a companies brand while simultaneously driving online traffic to official marketing channels like Facebook business pages and Twitter.

Stephen Fells

The advent of improved mobile technology and Web based ‘social’ services has led to a proliferation of choices for individuals, businesses and all types of organization. With these choices and the enormous growth in online sharing new opportunities and new problems have been created, opportunities Follr looks to amplify and problems it’s products help solve.

Follr Business helps companies who are overwhelmed with the complexities of not only social media but also technology and marketing in general. It has been developed using responsive design (often referred to as RWD), an approach to Web design that ensures an optimal viewing experience. The method results in minimal re-sizing, panning and scrolling when navigating using a multitude of devices including mobile phones and tablets.

It also includes ‘Social Stream’, an innovative and highly visual aggregation and representation of a companies social media content. Through one image, a visitor to a Follr Business Website can see and access tweets, blog posts, videos and other social media content published by a company.

Follr Business also provides access to local markets as a result of a relationship the company has with UBL Interactive, Inc. (UBL), a company that provides business owners and their representatives with a cost effective one-stop location for broad distribution of complete, accurate, and detailed business information.

Mark Wayman

Another problem addressed by Follr Business is social media use by employees. A rise in the creation of unofficial Facebook business pages and Twitter accounts by staff and in some instance clients has resulted in confusion among consumers. Follr Business helps reduce this problem by ensuring employees identify official marketing channels via their Follr Personal Digital Identity Websites. By taking advantage of the inherently viral benefits of modern day social communication, a business also gets exposure to the extended network of those same staff resources. This additionally helps Human Resource departments looking to implement social media policy.

Follr Business allows for document uploads, a custom domain name and social sharing, a way for visitors to share a company’s content and product information. Follr Business is a subscription based service.

About Follr, Inc.:
Follr, Inc. is a software company founded in 2011. Based in New York and California Follr provides Digital Identity Websites to individuals and corporations. Follr products include Follr Business, Follr Personal and Follr Community. Follr Business is a local and mobile enabled, social media based Website solution without the need for technical or marketing expertise. Aggregating a brand’s Digital Identity, it is a suite that represents the sum of everything online about a business and brand. Follr Personal aggregates all digitally available information about an individual making it available via one, short, domain name. It simultaneously serves as a social résumé, marketing aggregator and online business card. Follr Community helps associations, professional bodies, membership groups and societies better serve their members and students while simultaneously leveraging their network to reach a broader market.

About UBL Interactive and Universal Business Listing:
UBL Interactive, Inc. (UBLI) is based in Charlotte, NC, and operates Universal Business Listing at www.UBL.org. UBL provides business identity management tools for businesses large and small, SEO providers, advertising agencies and interactive marketers to help their customers distribute their business details as a trusted source across search engines, online Yellow Pages directories, 411 directory assistance, social networks and mobile devices. The company also offers reputation monitoring tools and a variety of premium Local SEO optimization services.

Forward-Looking Statements:
This news release may contain forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are indicated by words such as “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “believes” and similar expressions. Our ability to achieve the results anticipated in such forward-looking statements is subject to risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, our ability to successfully centralize and consolidate various support functions, in addition to general economic conditions, operating results, market acceptance of our solutions and other risks detailed from time to time in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are made in accordance with “safe harbor” provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and no assurance can be given that the future results that are the subject of such forward-looking statements will be achieved. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact:

Follr, Inc.
Stephen Fells – CEO
(888) 201-5160
steve@follr.com

The following is a recording of Jonah Lupton’s December 20th interview of Follr CEO Stephen Fells. The conversation focuses on Follr Digital Identity Websites.

We are pleased to announce a significant change that will allow you to connect with with people far more easily! Simply log into your Follr account and click the ‘Tags & Contacts’ link:

You’ll see lot’s of suggested contacts:

Click any ‘Connect’ button and your invitation is sent! Alternatively you can click the ‘Contact Finder’ link:

and then search by member tags or last name.

Every connection improves your Follr score. Is that important? YES! Search results on Follr list people with the highest Follr score first. So if you want to connect with people looking for someone with your skillset or interests start connecting now!