Art Gastelum Foundation – Supporting Latino Youth

Very happy to announce that we are a part of the construction of the Art Gastelum Foundation which will act as a center and resource for Latino youth.  Led by a friend, colleague and philanthropist Art Gastelum, the Art Gastelum Foundation will provide academic information and resources for our up and coming Latino Youth.

Strietzel.Co is happy to dedicate time and resources to the Foundation.

Click HERE to learn more about the Foundation and about Strietzel.Co.

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Steve Jobs Passes | Steve Jobs Dies | Apple.com October 5th 2011

The Passing of a Titan

Steve Jobs Passes | Steve Jobs Dies | Apple.com October 5th 2011

Respect: The Passing of a Titan.

What is Quora?



This generation’s easy internet access has, no doubt, revolutionized society. We can connect with people a world away with just a touch of our fingertips. There is an additional advantage to having access to the World Wide Web— information. We are no longer limited to the Encyclopedia Britannica or local library when a question arises. Easier access to answers has people asking more questions and this Q&A revolution is where Quora.com found its niche in the competitive and ever changing online world.

Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. Quora was founded in 2009 by Adam D’Angelo, who was previously CTO and VP of engineering at Facebook, and Charlie Cheever, who led Facebook Connect and Facebook Platform.

So you ask, what makes this Q&A website stand out among the crowd? There are actually several reasons for Quora’s success. Instead of just Q&A, Quora thinks about this as blogging. When you write a blog post, you write to your audience.

According to a recent article on TechCrunch.com, Quora’s founders explain “When you write on TechCrunch, you know that these people are expecting techie news about startups. When you come to a question page on Quora and it’s blank there are a bunch of people waiting for the answer. An expert will look at it and say “there’s an audience here and I know exactly what they want to hear. And I actually know about this stuff, or know enough to research and produce a really interesting piece of content, and it’s going to go to the perfectly targeted audience who opted in to hearing about this.”

Quora gives its users a sense of power, after all “knowledge is power”. Open discussion without the catty banter of Wikipedia, live/interactive feed, like-minded people seeking answers to life’s many questions and a well-designed website have made Quora a real up-and-comer in the virtual Q&A world. With this outstanding platform and a hefty $11 millon start-up funding from Benchmark Capital in 2010, it looks like this information portal is here to stay.

Quora has certainly sparked my interest and I read it regularly, consuming articles written by many different experts from various fields, recently I’ve enjoyed a few Quora answers from AOL founder Steve Case.  It is certainly worth an investigation and Im sure you’ll learn quite a bit in the process.  Just be careful who you are reading answers from.  Just as with Yahoo Answers, sometimes, the responder really has no idea what they are talking about.  The scary part is that they think they do and often sell their position well.  With Quora, I have found little of this, but still, reader beware.

Check out Quora HERE

Forbes | Americas Most Promising Companies | Strietzel | Jonathan Strietzel | Big Stage

Jonathan Strietzel | Americas Most Promising Companies | Forbes

Jonathan Strietzel: Forbes Magazine has a circulation of over 900,000 and its website, Forbes.com reaches approximately 18 million people a month. Both the magazine and the website are for the world’s top business leaders and in the October 5th, 2009 edition of Forbes, Big Stage Entertainment was named as #18 in America’s Most Promising Companies.

“Our company is very proud to have been included in such a prestigious list by one of the premier business brands in the world. We know from the hours spent answering questions and filling out forms that this was a very rigorous process. We also know that we have a lot of work to do to build this business, but we’re pleased that our efforts to date have been recognized in this way.  A big thanks to my founding partner Jon Kraft for playing a key role in hammering though this rigorous Q&A while on vacation!”

Jonathan Strietzel, President and Founder

According to Forbes.com “We didn’t just look for the slickest technology, the largest addressable market, the fastest-growing top lines or the most storied management team. In the specific case of Big Stage, the Big Stage Founding team organized by Jonathan Strietzel, Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy reflect such a management staff”

The method for determining the companies recognized on this new list was explained on the Forbes website as follows:

Forbes went hunting for small, dynamic companies with the kind of growth potential that makes venture capitalists salivate. Other lists of small or privately held companies tend to be ranked according to a single metric: annual revenue, or percentage change in revenue over a given period. Yet every serious investor knows that a cursory glance at the top line is a far cry from what it takes to evaluate the potential of any promising company.

To sharpen our search, Forbes teamed with The Venture Alliance, an advisory to early-stage companies. TVA has devised a rating system for young companies in order to more efficiently determine how fundable they are. The pool of candidates included companies launched within the last 10 years and that had not passed $25 million in annual sales. (Pre-revenue companies were allowed.) Prospects were scored on a host of characteristics, among them the size of the markets they serve, the strength of their intellectual property, the extent to which founders put their own capital at risk, the experience of their management and of their directors (or advisory boards), and their record in hitting product-development benchmarks promised to equity investors.

We collected the data via a detailed survey that takes roughly two hours to complete. Entrepreneurs who had raised outside capital gave business plans to TVA for further vetting; the rest completed an even more exhaustive survey. (Both surveys have subtle double-checks built in, to make sure the companies’ storylines indeed do track.) Our partner also brought in software experts and engineers to evaluate product plans (all signed nondisclosure agreements), and Forbes reporters interviewed all the finalists. The 20 highest scorers, listed here, appear to have a better shot at raising capital–and thus are considered more scintillating than their peers.

“We were very happy to learn that Forbes recognized the technology that Big Stage had developed over the past 3 years as a leader in its class, world-wide.  Its a wonderful tribute to the hard working engineering staff in our amazing company.  We thank Forbes and TVA for the opportunity and we are proud to grace the pages of such a prestigious magazine.”

Jonathan Strietzel, President and Founder

We cannot thank Forbes and Forbes.com enough for the honor of gracing their prestigious pages of Americas Most Promising Companies in 2009.

Fertile Action Gala 10′ Review

This year’s Fertile Action Gala was a huge success, with a spectacular venue in the SLS Hotel, amazing attendees and delightful entertainment. A definite night to remember.

The Gala Ballroom

A video I co-produced, created, editied and directed by Elijah Shepard for the foundation kicked off the evening followed by Dr. Susan Love. Dr. Love urged guests to join the Army of Women in the only initiative in the world that connects women diagnosed with breast cancer during their child-baring years to critical research projects affecting their health. In the past, all the breast cancer research was done on mice and as Dr. Love accurately put it, “It’s kind of hard to put mice in stir-ups.”

2010 Fertile Action Gala

Fertile Action table showcased Army of Womens work online and unveiled a poster showcasing at Livestrong’s Young Adult Alliance conference in November.

Alice Crisci Speaks at The Fertile Action Gala 10'

Alice Crisci lit up the stage as she told the Fertile Action story. Focusing on her astonishment that there was a 50/50 chance of her being personally stripped of the ability bear children and astonished at the staggering cost (approximately 20 thousand dollars) that it would take to finance any procedures that would protect her right a future as a mom. She discussed her personal experiences and the experiences of her close friends and colleagues. She pointed out that the University of Southern California Fertility was recognized for being the first of its kind to offer discounts to all women touched by cancer during their fertile years through the Open Discount financial aid program.

The evening carried on through the awards ceremony where The Vitality Award, was presented to Dr. Philomena McAndrew, an oncologist and founding partner with Tower Hematology and Oncology, for being the first to join the Fertile Action Network, pledging to ask all her patients, “Have you considered your fertility preservation options?”

In addition, the Visionary Award was given to California Cryobank and was accepted by Dr. Cappy Rothman for its leadership and partnership in the cause.

The Tasty Ta-Ta's Show

The evening continued with entertainment from the “Tasty Ta-Ta’s” crew and ended in great fashion.

All-in-all, the Fertile Action Gala was a wonderful event raising money for a terrific cause.

For further information regarding USC Fertility please visit USC Fertility and learn more about Fertile Action.

Angel Investors | Luis Villalobos Award

Angel Investor

Angel Investors – The Luis Villalobos Award launched this year, 2010, to recognize the most ingenious and innovative idea recently financed by one of the member angel groups of the Angel Capital Association (ACA). The award will be presented to the CEO of the winning entrepreneurial company at ACA’s annual conference, with travel costs covered by the award organizers and local/national publicity and recognition also being an important part of the award.

The award has been made open to companies that have received funding from an ACA member group in 2008, 2009, or 2010 and that are in operation when the application is submitted. The award committee consists of member of the ACA Board of Directors and a representative of the award sponsor.

Yesterday, May 7th, 2010, the first Luis Villalobos award was awarded by ACA , to a start-up based in Seattle, WA.  According to the ACA, it awarded Modumetal, a developer of nano-laminated materials, used as a replacement for stainless steel.

Luis Villalobos, my close friend and mentor who passed away in late 2009, was the founder of Tech Coast Angels (TCA). He was a true innovator in the angel investment field, he was a sought after expert and speaker in the angel investment field. He was a man who appreciated honestly, originality, ingenuity and integrity.  He was an original thinker, and encouraged entrepreneurs to be think outside of the box. He not only pushed me to be the best I could possibly be, but inspired me to help others in the process.  Luis was not only one of the best people and minds I had ever encountered, he was a dear friend and top notch Angel Investor.

Luis Villalobos, Founder of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA)

Luis Vilallobos,

My friend and founder of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA), one of the largest angel investment groups in the nation, died at the age of 70 on Thursday at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange County.

Luis Villalobos received a degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1963 graduated from Harvard Business School. His education and sheer unadulterated talent combined made him a visionary in the angel investment community. Luis had a vision for Orange County, which was to create a network of sophisticated investors that would invest in early stage companies and help usher them into growth.  His primary focus was to innovate and invest in “Big, Game Changing, Ideas”. He started Tech Coast Angels in 1997 and was its first president. There are now five TCA  chapters spanning from Santa Barbara to San Diego with more than 250 active angels in its membership. Since its establishment, TCA has directly invested over $100 million into its portfolio companies. Those companies have gone on to raise over one billion dollars in cumulative capital.

Luis played a key role and lead the charge in TCA, making 57 personal investments. During these investments, Luis was dedicated to mentoring and coaching the entrepreneurs and managers he believed had the potential to make it in the business.  One of Luis’s final investments was his investment in my company Big Stage Entertainment.  It took Luis all of 30 minutes to make his decision.  He agreed to not only invest, but also proceeded to champion our company through the TCA screening process.  After a successful campaign through the TCA process, Luis was invited and ultimately joined our board of directors and took on a key role in helping Big Stage attract funds from Mission Ventures and Selby Ventures.  Over the course of 3 years, Big Stage Entertainment raised over 10MM in Angel and Venture Capital.

From the first meeting I had with Luis, he became my biggest critic and ultimately my biggest champion. I will always remember our lunches, filled with plain speaking and the blunt and honest truth. If I could thank him, I would have thanked him for always being stand up and forward  about my shortcomings.  Luis’s blunt honesty and open criticism truly has made me a better entrepreneur, businessman, and most important of all, a better person. The loss of a friend and treasured colleague is always difficult, however in these unfortunate situations I believe it is important to hold your head high in celebration for the life of their dear friend. A part of him will continue to live on through the lives he changed during his time one earth.

Luis Villalobos, Angel investor, visionary technologist, philanthropist and most of all, my mentor, board member, and my friend.

He is survived by his wife Ora Zoe Villalobos and his dear sister, Olga Badia. They remain in my thoughts throughout this very difficult time.

Strietzel | Kay – Ford Fiesta Juggling Shoot

Strietzel and Ford’s Kay Team Up

Strietzel, Olga Kay, Jonathan Strietzel

Ford Fiesta Juggling Shoot. Olga Kay and Jonathan Strietzel

Jonathan Strietzel – Wanted to give a shout out to Olga who came by to shoot a fun Ford Fiesta skit with me. Olga, I had a blast. Thanks for the good times 😉

Startup – Big Stage $2.7MM raised for Avatar Software

Startup News – Los Angeles – Big Stage Entertainment, is the worlds leading developer of 3D facial creation technology, otherwise known as an Avatar, announced on Tuesday that it had secured an additional $2.7 million in second round funding, from Mission Ventures, Selby Ventures and TechCoast Angels.

Big Stage Entertainment is a So. Cal Startup, founded by Jonathan Strietzel, Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy, that has raised a total of $10.6 million through their Angel and Series A rounds of financing.The company said its Series B round will remain open for an additional $3.3 million.

Big Stage allows a user to insert their avatar onto a fully animated, 3D avatar, this avatar can be used in video games, virtual worlds, mobile games, learning and training simulations and much more.

Some of Big Stage’s Clients include Lionsgate, Funcom, Sony BMG, GGL Global Gaming, Cannel Group and Intel Corporation.

The company will use the new funds to accelerate research and development, and sales and marketing efforts.

Startup News – Jonathan Strietzel on IEEE

Strietzel Featured on IEEE

Startup – Strietzel | Big Stage

Startup Mayhem – Strietzel‘s Big Stage Technology

“UM YEAH. THIS IS LIKE EVERYTHING THAT I’VE BEEN EXCITED ABOUT FOR A WHILE.” 

April 05, 2009

These are true words from an email I received earlier this week as authored by a well-respected digital marketing executive. What can I say… it resonated with me, not simply because of the boiled down truth, but because this same sentiment has been echoed in countless meetings since I joined this hot Startup founded by Jonathan Strietzel, Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy – Big Stage nearly two years ago. Yes, reading this email made my day (thank you)! 

Why do people respond like this to Big Stage? Other than the undeniable wow factor of our 3D avatar technology, I believe it’s about an immediate connection to our unique vision. In brief, how cool is the idea of having a digital version of YOU that can be deployed on command across your digital life?

Well, this reality has already begun and the rest of our story involves taking a leap. Just think… How much fun would it be if you could play your favorite video game as YOU, competing against Tiger Woods, LeBron James, or even battling an army of super ninjas with the help of your buddies online. You could even go inside a virtual world as YOU, decked out in some crazy hair, Prada glasses, and the cool shirt that would absolutely freak out your mom… And just think about how much fun you could have by tasking your digital ‘self’ to represent you by way of your instant messenger, articulating to friends and family with life-like gestures as you type or [better yet] speak into your connected headset. It’s you, your way, online… as many ways as you want. Pretty wild!

Those of us who’ve been in the digital trenches since the mid-90s can well recall how personalization has evolved from custom emails to the use of collaborative filtering on websites to deliver merchandise and/or content experience based on your own likes/dislikes. These were considered game changers back in the day, and many of them were actually not about “you” but rather “them” trying to figure out a better way to sell you stuff. Fortunately for us, personalization has continued to evolve, largely to help us save time, gain access to better information, and generally make our lives a whole lot easier. But now, the age of personalized has gotten ‘photo-real’ thanks to the technology and early vision of Jonathan Strietzel, Jon Kraft, Jon Snoddy and the amazing team he built at Big Stage.

You are now free to roam across your digital life – as YOU.

Um yeah. This is what we’re most excited about, and it’s only the beginning. Stay tuned!

 

Posted By : Jonas Gray – aka Scoob

Startup | Big Stage Entertainment

Startup Analysis: Big Stage Entertainment, words from Marcus Alexander Hart/Geek Monthly/February 2009

Geek Monthly

Startup Big Stage Entertainment – Marcus Alexander Hart writes about how he remembers the movie S1mOne? Marucs covered how Al Pacino had a digital actress with him that he could constantly and freely drop into any movie of his choice at any time. Marcus covered Big Stage well when he credited us with taking the first steps toward making what he called a “batshit technical fantasy” into a reality.  He describes to his audience that it simply takess three pictures of your face, how we allowed him to choose his hairstyle and glasses, and moments later he claimed to have seen a “disturbing Java doppelganger” mugging back at him.

Marcus really got into our little Startup by add that with a few more clicks he had mapped himself into footage from the A-Team, The Greatest American Hero and a bunch of our black-and-white clips from what he called  “The ol’ public domain barrel”. Here what Marcu’s overall assessment was of our Startup’s new technology:

S1mOne it ain’t, but if you have some understanding of how difficult it is to turn a handful of pixel data into a real-time, speaking, acting double of Johnny from Night of the Living Dead, Big Stage is pretty incredible.  If you’re the other 99% of the population, you’ll just enjoy seeing your own rasterized puss starring as the foo’ that Mr. T pities.

Marcus’s overall Verdict was that our Startup wasnt the “death of real”, but, it was still really fun.

Startup Technology – PortableYou

Strietzel – December 15, 2008 | Jon Snoddy

Startup Life – People who frequent Big Stage Joint tend to dream big. Kind of an unspoken requirement I guess. We started this thing with the vision of digitizing humanity… all of it… everybody. We wanted to create a technology so transformative that it would launch an unstoppable series of domino falls that would result in a planet sized population of digital people, all dressed up and looking for somewhere to go. For this to happen, we knew that the tech would have to be really easy to use. It would have to rely on hardware that everybody has laying around and it would have to happen fast because we are all so crazy busy. We set goals: a standard digital camera, a couple of photos in a couple of minutes, and your friends have to recognize the results, and who would have thought; we’re there, and more. Woo hoo! Let’s go digitize a species.

To entertain the digital us, we took the next step with the launch of our Startup, www.bigstage.com, our social network in which you create and share the digital you in cool digital content. Adding yourself to content you like is great good fun and sharing it is hard to resist, so pretty much everyone gets bigstage.com.

That’s now rolling so we are on to our third act in which
“The Digital You” gets up and walks out the damn door! We call it PortableYou and we are inviting all our friends are to the party. Any web site, video game or virtual world can adopt PortableYou and add instant personalization to their world. They can play, fight, learn, travel in the wonders of cyberspace, with their friends, as themselves. Life is good in Digitalville. You can digitize yourself before breakfast at bigstage.com, dash off to a class at thevenuenetworks.com, then star in the film, The Spirit on your iPhone, and close out the day hanging with the digital star of a hit MTV show. Yes, the digital life is sweet.

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Startup News: Transport yourself from Game-to-Game

Dean Takahashi | December 11th, 2008 | Repost by Jonathan Strietzel

If your interested in building a 3-D avatar, or virtual character, you might as well spread take it everywhere with you. That’s the point of Big Stage Entertainment’s PortableYou program.

Big Stage uses a highly advanced, facial modeling system to render an amazing digital replica of you in seconds which can be transported into numerous forms of interactive media.

Big Stage allows you then take your avatar from one place to another, as long as each desitination conform to Big Stage’s own applications programming interface, or API. For now, the API is proprietary, but Big Stage hopes to make it a standard.

Creating an avatar is easy.  An avatar can be created in a few seconds using three standard digital camera photos of someone’s face taken with any standard camera with a flash. This amazing process creates an amazingly accurate, high definition avatar in seconds and allows you to transport it into a number of environments.

Still, the idea could catch on because it fits with the theme of personalization that is taking over everything from YouTube personal video channels to social networks, said Phil Ressler, chief executive of Big Stage.

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Big Stage Partners with Splash News and GGL Global Gaming

Virtual Worlds News/December 11, 2008

Yesterday Big Stage announced  the launch of Portable You, its program to integrate its 3D facial models with third parties or games, virtual worlds, and more as well as an initial partnership with Icarus Studios and The Venue Network. Today it announced two more partnerships, with Splash News, a celebrity photo site, and GGL Global Gaming, a gaming community. With Splash News, users will be able to put their own faces on the latest paparazzi shots, and GGL will promote games and content with still images and movies on Big Stage. The latter partnership will also bring promotional opportunities with one “major video game publisher” launching a partnership in early 2009.

“The popularity of GGL demonstrates how playing videogames online with a community of friends has transformed gaming into a highly social activity,” said Phil Ressler, Big Stage Entertainment CEO. “With the promotional experiences offered on BigStage.com through this partnership, gamers will be able to take their affinity for games one giant step forward by turning themselves into the characters they love to play, with the ability to share these unique experiences with friends, whether they are on MySpace, Facebook or GGL. Until BigStage.com, seeing yourself appear in 3-D animation alongside your favorite game characters would have required the help of an army of developers. BigStage.com is breaking down that barrier for gamers.”

Startup – Big Stage | GGL Partnership

Strietzel – Posted by Kevin Jenkins in Tech News on 12 11th, 2008

BigStage.com Users Will Be Able to Insert Their 3-D @ctors Into Free Video Game Content, Then Share with Friends and GGL Community Members

LOS ANGELES, Dec 11, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Big Stage Entertainment, Inc., a media technology company founded by Jonathan Strietzel, Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy, that lets consumers project themselves photo-realistically into the digital realm, is partnering with videogame social networking company GGL Global Gaming (GGL) to promote free game content on BigStage.com. The first promotion rollout with a major video game publisher is scheduled for early 2009. Members of the BigStage.com and GGL communities will soon be able to insert their 3-D @ctor, a realistically animated digital clone quickly created for free from a few photos, into game cinematics, still images and animatics. Users can then share this content with friends and post to GGL community pages and other social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace.

“GGL members love great video games as well as new technology that enhances their gaming experience,” said Ted Owen, Owner/Chairman of GGL. “The @ctor creation technology offered on BigStage.com is a great benefit to our members who are constantly seeking creative new ways to express themselves and their love of videogames to the community. Unlike anything gamers have seen before, putting your own realistically animated face onto videogame characters is an innovation that players will be eager to embrace.”

With 26 million unique visitors per month, the GGL Network serves as a hub for videogame fans worldwide. The vast network of GGL gamers visit the site to find news, information and communities, in addition to competing in online gaming competitions and tournaments.

“The popularity of GGL demonstrates how playing videogames online with a community of friends has transformed gaming into a highly social activity,” said Phil Ressler, Big Stage Entertainment CEO. “With the promotional experiences offered on BigStage.com through this partnership, gamers will be able to take their affinity for games one giant step forward by turning themselves into the characters they love to play, with the ability to share these unique experiences with friends, whether they are on MySpace, Facebook or GGL. Until BigStage.com, seeing yourself appear in 3-D animation alongside your favorite game characters would have required the help of an army of developers. BigStage.com is breaking down that barrier for gamers.”

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Startup News – A Mug’s Game

Startup’s software allows users to insert 3-D versions of their faces in videos, photos, online content.

By CHARLES PROCTOR
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff
Posted date: 11/10/2008
How many people want to see themselves in a clip from “Phantom of the Opera” or “The A-Team”? Enough to build a business?

Pasadena Startup Big Stage Entertainment Inc. is about to find out. The company last week publicly launched a software program that creates a 3-D image from photos of a person’s face. The image can then be placed over the heads of actors in movie clips and still photos at the company’s Web site, giving users the appearance of being, say, Mr. T or in a scene from “Night of the Living Dead.”

At this stage of Big Stage, which was founded two years ago by entrepreneurs Jonathan Strietzel, Jon Kraft and Jon Snoddy, the choice of clips and photos into which your likeness can be integrated is limited. Phil Ressler, the company’s chief executive, said Big Stage is in conversations with movie studios, video game publishers and ad agencies to offer more content for people to pop up in. He envisions a day when Big Stage users – he calls them “actors” – will be able to insert themselves into sites all over the Internet.

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Jonathan Strietzel: “Creating the Digital You”

By Dog and Pony Editor – November 6th, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

Jonathan Strietzel is the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of BigStage.com a new digital media company that is bringing digital versions of real people to life. For those of you who’ve dreamed of staring in a blockbuster movie or TV show alongside their favorite actor, or perhaps you’ve wanted to save the world in a video game, rock out on a music video, BigStage.com offers you the opportunity to do so in less than 30 seconds. Sound like fun? Well this seemingly innocuous idea turns out to be big business. This completely new entertainment vertical will be a big win for advertisers who are constantly looking for creative new ways for people to interact with their product.

Web customization, in the cyberworld, is growth of user-centric Facebook applications, YouTube videos, and MySpace pages. What started out as merely cartoon-like image engines, shifted toward three-dimensional architectures where users have been able to give life to their pint-size replicates. BigStage.com has taken it one step further from a static format into a fully interactive functionality, where the possibilities are seemingly endless. The genius behind this company is that it takes an “open stage” platform, where users can simply download an API toolkit and use structural bits of content to create king

This is evidenced just by looking at the explosive their own microsight. In essence, the site turns into a network engine where users build, customize and improve features and contribute directly to the site’s growth.