We talk a lot about disruption in this industry, but Netcurate has taken it a step further. With Netcurate, the online magazine has come of age and heads up, purveyors of Social Media and PR: It’s not just about aggregation – it’s curation. It’s not just about static articles – you can run polls, quizzes. Which means that the audience is in the conversation, from beginning to end. And speaking of conversations, Chief Curator Sujay Maheshwari is here to tell us more.
Tell us about the product.
Netcurate helps the Social Media and the PR teams create a branded content experience in form of an online magazine. The contributors to the magazine can bring in relevant content from across the Internet or can create fresh content. This helps their outreach in the online community, using fewer resources. The stories on the magazine become interactive and engaging via Netcurate Apps (poll, quiz, take)
These magazines can also be embedded into external blogs or web pages so that users see fresh and relevant content in a brand’s digital properties.
The content is interactive, engaging and relevant to their users resulting in deeper user engagement.
How is it different?
New content creation takes time and effort. However we come across a lot of good content, which we also share on social networks. This is also a form of curation.
We are taking this to the next level. First, you can place this content in the form of a magazine (with no additional effort). This magazine doesn’t have any ads (a.k.a noise) and is highly customization for your brand. Second, it’s just not mere curation without any value. On this hand-picked content, we allow viewpoints (from contributors or by invitation), you run a poll, allow readers to take a quiz etc. We call these our “Netcurate Apps,” and they run inside your magazine. This way it’s not necessary going forward to “generate new content” – what’s more important is to bring relevant content in front of users, which is engaging and interactive for them.
The best part is that a group can do this together without spending a lot of time.
And yes, you can make these magazines “private” so that only a set of invite-only users will have access to your magazine. (We get this question all the time J )
What market are you attacking and how big is it?
We are targeting “Digital Marketing,” including Native Advertising, Content Marketing, and Social Media/ PR Marketing.
In terms of brands, we have started reaching out to Conference Industry and PR Agencies to begin with.
What is the NetCurate business model?
It’s a freemium model. For up to two contributors, your magazine is free. You only pay if you want to have more than two contributors. This allows us to keep all the ads off the magazine and provide a rich and branded experience to both the business and to their readers. Readers do not pay to sign up and subscribers to these magazines.
Why is your team the right one to get the job done?
This team is together since last four years and it’s their second startup. Their previous company was in ad-tech space and they learned a lot about how traditional display advertisement is just not working anymore.
If you look at our magazines, they are highly visual and have the right elements to promote branding – which this team knows how to do well.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within 6 months?
On the platform side, we will be building additional apps which can be “run” inside your magazine. This will help the magazine creators with additional interaction with their users.
On the business side, we are working with several PR professionals and getting them on board so that they can benefit from the next generation outreach platform.
If you could speak with one investor in the New York community, who would it be and why?
Gary Vaynerchuk is one name that comes to mind. Well, mainly because he gets “content + engagement.” He also is a big influencer in the community, which is our target market.
Why did you launch in New York?
Indeed, there is no dearth of technical talent here. But that’s not the primary reason. The target market for our business is “agency” and there is no other place like New York to reach them.
