A small, locally run technology company is aiming to make Squamish the birthplace of the next online social media revolution.
And Tristorm Product Design wants to do it by making Internet-based market research affordable and accessible to small- and medium-sized businesses in Squamish and around the world.
As presented by company president Jason Cyr at the Squamish Chamber of Commerce's monthly luncheon on Tuesday (Jan. 18) at The Nest restaurant, the Tiipz.com concept is a social media platform that allows businesses to leverage followers on both large screens and small by asking for their opinions of a product, service or shopping experience and rewarding them for answering.
Tentatively planned for a "soft" launch this May, Tiipz.com is a subscription-based service designed to solicit "micropinions" from consumers, allowing businesses large and small to get immediate feedback and respond more quickly to customer desires and trends.
Formed in July 2010, the company which has six employees and a small office in the Galleries Building on Tantalus Road is made up of people with a background in information technology and a desire to design an online tool that serves the needs of small businesses.
"We realized through all the work we do that research is very expensive and not very accessible to small- to medium-sized businesses," Cyr said.
In their own experience and the research they've done to date, "We have companies who really need to be understood and a huge audience out there waiting to engage with them."
According to Cyr, the Tiipz tool can work through existing social media such as Facebook and Twitter, or it can stand on its own using other Internet platforms. The "micropinions" could be easy, yes-and-no or multiple-choice questions, or they could be an image on the company's homepage. Followers can then be asked to answer the question or react to the image or even text passage.
Tiipz subscribers pay a fee based on the business's size and level of engagement sought through the service for example, in addition to seeking "micropinions" from certain groups of followers, they might also wish to solicit comments.
Followers who provide their reactions might accumulate points that can then be redeemed for products or services, Cyr said.
"Most importantly, micropinions can be targeted to a given audience," he said. "You can send follow-up questions to a specific segment of your customer base."
While he admitted Squamish isn't the Silicon Valley or even Redmond, Wash., Cyr said he and his partners think there's a pioneering spirit and enough tech-savvy types here to make it the birthplace of such a tool.
"Already we're the second-largest IT company in town," he said, adding that Tristorm is part of the Inside Edge technology networking group.
"We could certainly base ourselves in Yaletown or somewhere else, but we're really passionate about being in Squamish. We want to do our best to create a place where [people in the information technology field] can work in town and realize the benefits of sharing their skills right here in Squamish."
For information, visit www.tiipz.com
