Sysomos: The Right Place at the Right Time

Having been involved in three start-ups, one of the must-have elements is simply having the right product at the right time. When I co-founded Blanketware in 2001, we were focused on providing natural language search so people could find and use online services. Unfortunately, the Web 2.0 revolution hadn’t happened yet so Blanketware was hurt by being ahead of its time.

A stark contrast is Sysomos (a client), which is now thriving with its social media monitoring and analytics services – Heartbeat and MAP. Not only is the company’s technology best-of-class but, as important, Sysomos is playing is a market in which there is huge demand from companies looking for insight and intelligence about the social media landscape.

It’s really exciting to be working with a start-up in the eye of the hurricane. There is tremendous interest in Sysomos’ services from companies around world. In the past year, it has attracted clients such as Roche, Shell Oil, Hill & Knowlton, Ketchum and Sony Ericsson.

While I’m obviously biased, Sysomos is one of Canada’s biggest high-tech success stories. The company, which spent three years developing its technology, has quickly become a fast-growing business, which is something that happens to a small group of start-ups.

Today, Sysomos unveiled a new version of its Heartbeat social media monitoring and measurement service, and it now includes Facebook integration. It’s a major step forward for a service that already had major traction. For anyone not aware of Heartbeat, here’s a short video.

For more on Sysomos and its services, check out this blog post by Jason Falls.