Four months ago, I wrote about a one-man machine in Thailand, Peerapong Pulpitpatnan (aka Pete), who pumped out a YouTube clone and a Twitter clone all within a span of three months.
Now, Pete has re-launched LetsProve as a fully integrated social updating platform that lies somewhere between a Twitter and a Friendfeed, with a bit of a personal notification service mixed in.
I initially questioned his ability to gain traction. But then Plurk, a micro-blogging platform with a cool UI that I covered last month, has skyrocketed with myriads of Twitter users migrating, and that may give hope to Pete.
The Letsprove application features “messages,” which are 140-character status updates. An “activities” function also gives users running updates across different social platforms. Users can toggle between just “you” or “you and friends.”
Users can import feeds from an array of services, including photo-sharing site Flickr and Google’s Picasa; music platforms Muxtape and BLIP; Google web services Gmail and Google Reader; blogs Facebook notes, Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress, and Live journal; video-sharing sites YouTube, Seesmiq, Qik and Vimeo; social networks Facebook, Myspace, and hi5; and even technology blogs like VentureBeat, Techcrunch, Mashable and Engadget.
There’s also a map feature that lets users browse their friends’ updates by geo-location.
Letsprove offers developers an open platform — a chance to integrate any application of choice into the LetsProve network.
“Basically, [the] open platform means users can import and share their content from any web services in the world,” Pete says. “Friendfeed has 35 services available, but I don’t think there are only 35 websites people usually use. I think people want to be notified about some activities such as receive email or news, etc. So [the] LetsProve platform enables applications to send a notification message via LetsProve or Twitter.”
An example of the notification service, would be “LetsGmail,” where users input Gmail information and are notified of new messages. Other options can alert them of new photos or a change in value of a stock they’re following.
Pete’s also updated the application’s privacy features, letting users choose which activities are private or public. Any activities or applications can be deleted at any time and effectively erased from your friends’ feeds as well.
Pete has completely bootstrapped the company with money he earned from advertising on LetsProve.TV as well as earnings from previous employment with Softscape. He’s posted ads on LetsProve and hopes to gain enough traction to generate revenue. And considering he’s built the company on $3,000, it won’t take too much revenue to keep him going. He did have a potential funding deal in the works, he says, but it fell through.
As with most social micro-blogging/aggregating platforms, Letsprove will require a decent uptick in traction to make it worthwhile for users to make the switch.
While I’m simply amazed that one person can be so creative and productive, I have my doubts as to whether LetsProve will be a successful product, if not for the quality of the application and its myriad of uses, then for the uphill battle Pete will have in attracting users.
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