Press room
Facebook Adds 17 More Companies to Its Preferred Developer Consultant Program
Inside Facebook, March 2, 2011. Facebook added seventeen more developers to to its preferred developer consultant program yesterday, bringing the current total to 64.The list, for those not familiar, features "experienced developers who have built numerous Facebook integrations and offer solutions ranging from contests, polls and campaigns to deeply integrated social experiences," according to Facebook's program page.
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New Preferred Developers and Open Application Round
Facebook Developers, March 1, 2011. We often hear from companies looking for guidance on maximizing their Facebook presence. To better meet each entity's needs, we introduced the Preferred Developer Consultant (PDC) programin December 2009 to connect companies and brands to the resources they need to build with Facebook products and technologies.What separates a PDC from most other digital development firms is the ability to understand social mechanics and technical possibilities on Platform.
Today, we're pleased to announce the addition of 17 companies to the PDC program
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Personera Receives $1.4 Million in Funding to Create Merchandise for Facebook Pages
Inside Facebook, February 17, 2011. Personera is a free Facebook application that allows Pages to create and sell custom calendars and other physical merchandise that integrates user content. Today it announced that it has received $1.4 million in funding from Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa, a South African firm backed by SAP's co-founder Hasso Plattner. Personera could use the funding to increase the variety of its product offering, court more Facebook Pages, and grow its head start in the branded Facebook-content merchandise market.When users visit the Your Calendar tab application on the Page of one of Personera's clients, such as Woolworths South Africa or Fitness Magazine, they'll grant the app extended permissions that allow it to pull their photos and the birthdays of their friends. The Page's selected photos are shown full size,thumbnails of user photos appear at the beginning and end of each month's calendar page, and birthdays are listed on the appropriate days. Users can opt to customize exactly which photos they want to appear, view or download a preview, and order a physical calendar for $19.95.
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Personera raises $1.4M, teams with Appbistro
Vator.tv, February 17, 2011. Personera, a technology platform that creates personalized digital and print products for Facebook users, announced Tuesday that it has closed a $1.4 million Series A round from Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa. The primary contributor to the round is Dr. Hasso Plattner, co-founder of enterprise software giant SAP. The latest round of capital brings Personera's total raised to $1.62 million."The capital will be used to fund global sales, product launch and marketing initiatives, growing Personera's team in the USA, and expanding Personera's product range," said Personera CEO Sheraan Amod.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, Personera is a free app that brands can install on their Facebook pages to offer fans the chance to order personalized products built around their social networks. The startup's flagship product is "Your Calendar," a customized calendar plotting your Facebook friends' birthdays. Brands have the benefit of being able to advertise (for example, in the larger image space on the calendar page) while also providing personalized dates, birthdays, and images in the calendar page.
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Personera: Make money from your Facebook fan pages with personalized products [video]
The Next Web, February 15, 2011. Personera is a personalized products platform for brands on Facebook.I caught up with founder Sheraan Amod, co-founder and CEO, who told me how the company works and gave me a demo.Products range includes calendars, photobooks and cards, and are available in professional print versions or digital downloads. All of their products include shared content between the brand and the individual consumer, creating a one of a kind keepsake or piece of merchandise for every customer.
I asked Sheraan if they were taking a gamble as a third party application relying entirely on the Facebook platform and if they plan to expand to any other platforms. What do you think? Should apps be concentrate solely on the Facebook platform or should they be thinking beyond Facebook?
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Monetizing Social Media Via Brand Extensions
PIworld, February 14, 2011. Imagine you’re visiting the Facebook page of your favorite sports team or rock band. Suppose that, with a few clicks, you could create a totally personalized calendar—replete with photos of the team or band in action, the days of the month filled in with your own special events and friends’ birthdays, and other spaces populated with pictures from your Facebook albums.This is the vision and initial offering of Personera, a new firm that uses Facebook as the creation point for production of personalized calendars, photo books, greeting cards and the like. At the PODi AppForum last week, I talked with Sheraan Amod, co-founder of the nascent firm to get a sense of his technology, then talked with my friend Alin Jacobs to get his take.
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The Social Butterfly of Start-ups
Inc., September 3, 2010. Actually, one of our fastest-growing cities was Capetown, South Africa. This guy has a company called Personera, which is really freaking cool. He heard about us because he had an investor in San Francisco, and he was like, 'Hey we need something like this in Capetown.'Read more...
Almost Social Photo Books
M-Bossed, July 30, 2010. The Social Photo Book does not exist yet. The infrastructure and technology are readily available, so it is only a matter of time before this type of application comes to market. The company who can provide the best and simplest user experience wins.Both Personera and Group Story share some aspects of the Social Photo Book and could add the remaining pieces.
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Personera Fitness Calendar
Fitness Mag, June 18, 2010. The perfect addition to your Fitness lifestyle is the new, exclusive Fitness magazine themed calendar series. Created in conjunction with Personera, you can personalise your calendar and include all your important dates and pictures – downloaded from Facebook, with a few simple clicks of a button.Read more...
Facebook Plugins Continue to Spread, 100,000 Sites Now Connected
Inside Facebook, May 12, 2010. Personera, which helps people print their own materials like photos and calendars, told Facebook that its users generate 50% more page views, spend 25% more time on the site and have a 20% lower bounce rate than non-Facebook users.Read more...
After f8: Personalized Social Plugins Now on 100,000+ Sites
Facebook's Developer Blog, May 11, 2010. Personera, a site helping people create personalized print materials, has also integrated with Facebook to enable users to create calendars with their Facebook photos and events, and even populate them with their friends' birthdays. They've found that Facebook users generate 50% more pageviews, spend 25% more time on site, and have a 20% lower bounce rate.Read more...
The New Titans of #Print
M-Bossed, May 11, 2010. Services from Facebook to Wordpress allow data to be extracted, based upon user preferences, for other purposes through the use of APIs. Your Facebook profile can then suddenly be printed to a Personera calendar.Read more...
Where online and print meet
Web Brainstorm, April 15, 2010. Bringing some personal permanence to the online world is proving a hit for a young Cape company. Starting a print business in this day and age might seem strange, but Personera is no ordinary print business. It’s a personalised print calendar service that allows consumers to take their photos and friends’ information out of Facebook and turn it into something more permanent.Read more...
Startup Personera Lets You Print Your Facebook Calendar
Under30CEO, April 15, 2010. The idea behind Personera was an epiphany that occurred when Sheraan Amod, a social networking and tech evangelist met Jaco de Wet, an industrial engineering grad and publishing enthusiast.Personera, a web to print company combining the best elements of Facebook and personalized digital print was founded soon after. With backing of angel investors, the startup launched publicly in November 2009.
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Personera Marries Xerox with Facebook
Xerox Digital Printing Hotspot, April 5, 2010. Personera.com was the first company in the world to spot the link between VDP and using social networks as a source of user information. [...] By successfully integrating Facebook data and personalized print with a single click, the future product options for Personera are numerous. By leveraging their unique, distributed production solution, Personera’s potential reach extends to the magnitude of the Xerox network. It is an exciting time to witness at last the intersection of online into offline media.Read more...
Calendar Marketing Association: 2010 World Calendar Awards
Calendar Marketing Association, March 25, 2010. Personera.com wins the Silver Award for Best Contemporary Art. Judging has been completed for the 2010 National and World Calendar Award Competitions. A panel of judges examined all entries and rated the entries on the following criteria: Quality of artwork/photography/graphics; Readability and information quality of the calendar grid; Originality of the calendar; Complete execution of the calendar subject/theme; Fulfillment of the category entered.Read more...
Tapping the crowd for start-up funding
TechCentral, March 22, 2010. But when Personera, an SA start-up founded by Sheraan Amod, presented them with a great idea on which it had to move quickly... several angel-funding entrepreneurs from successful companies such as Yola and Clicks2Customers stepped up with risk capital to provide the funding that the official channels failed to provide. The company is already a great success, with a growing international market and rising public profile.Read more...
Marketing Innovation for Startups: Three Strategies to Take On Big Challenges
gottAquirk, March 15, 2010. Today we have a guest post from Sheraan Amod. He's from Personera, an interesting South African startup specialising in personalised print products enhanced with Facebook content. Given the challenges faced in this important space he thought it would be good to share some marketing tactics that have worked for him. Enjoy.Read more...
IdeaBounty does a video interview with Personera founders
IdeaBounty Blog, March 5, 2010. I'm sure you will agree its a simple service, but that's what makes it so great - and I honestly think the best is yet to come. Having printed products which are based on what goes on in the online world is fast becoming a trend - You can buy books full of Tweets now! - and I personally can't wait to see what the guys at Personera come up with next.Read more...
Episode 58: Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs
The Digital Edge, March 1, 2010. Personera co-founder Sheraan Amod was interviewed in the Digital Edge podcast: "This week The Digital Edge takes a trip down to the Silicon Cape to speak to five local entrepreneurs that are blazing a path for the South African digital space. With issues like funding, securing talent and taking an idea international being issues for any local endevour, we speak to these local entrepreneurs to understand how they overcame these issues."Read more...
AfrinCast Episode #6: Sheraan Amod
Afrinnovator, February 26, 2010. We talked with Sheraan Amod from South Africa for the latest edition of AfrinCast. Sheraan Amod is the Co-Founder and CEO of Personera, a global personalized publishing service offering useful print products integrated with Facebook content. He is a winner of the FNB Enablis Launchpad- the biggest small business competition in Africa- and Curator of the Startup Digest [Cape Town]. Sheraan holds a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Cape Town. Sheraan is also the curator for the Cape Town Startup Digest. We talk about this and his experience as a startup founder in Africa, the startup scene in South Africa and much more.Read more...
Show 'Em, Girl! - Make a Wall Calendar
Cosmopolitan, February 23, 2010. Local website Personera (www.personera.com) allows you to create a wall calendar using your Facebook photos. Just sign up, give it access to your Facebook albums and tagged photos, pick a template, and drag and drop your photos. You can also have it insert all your friends' birthdays automatically (if you have too many friends, overflow birthdays are printed on the inside back page) and you can even add your own events and dated notes. The high-quality calendars comprise two A4 pages per month and include a removable photo-collage page, all for R200. Flickr support is coming soon too.Read the full article on page 56 of the March 2010 issue of Cosmopolitan South Africa.
Personera.com's story
GeekDigest, February 22, 2010. Sheraan's story is one of those that any budding South African entrepreneur has to love: the concept of Personera is innovative, unique and has global potential and reach (in fact they do have customers from around the world). It is the first project launched under the SiliconCape banner, and they have a bridge to the global markets via Vinny Lingham who is an investor in the startup.Read more...
[Labs Project] The Personera Story
IS Labs, February 21, 2010. After several vigorous conversations at the event (while everyone else was in session), we stumbled onto this remarkable idea: what if Facebook content was integrated into normal, everyday print products? What if the calendar on our walls actually showed us who's birthdays were coming up?The idea of producing calendars and other popular products upgraded with a person's existing social data (such as relevant birthdays, photos and events) was compelling, and impossible to shake. We knew our girlfriends, and their friends, would love it (and when we launched, they did).
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Three Takeaways from the Dogpatch Labs Event
Dogpatch Labs, January 23, 2010. The best Facebook Connect implementations go beyond the login. They must give the user a reason to interact and provide value after the login – and with Connect, the content and data go far beyond registration: photos, birthdays, social graph, etc. JibJab and Personera are terrific examples: by logging in through Facebook Connect, you are enabling a better, more social site experience.Read more...
The GeekRetreat & Some Great Ideas
IdeaBounty Blog, January 18, 2010. Personera - Not focused on the education side but one amazing idea never the less. Personera uses the Facebook API to allow users to pull together information from their profiles (photos, birthdays, events etc.) and then gives users the opportunity to create physical personalised calendars, wallpapers and other gifts. This project is so awesome I will do a full post on it soon!Read more...
Geekretreat
cognician, January 18, 2010. Although every part of it was hugely interesting and inspiring, some of my personal highlights included: [...] Sheraan Amod's lighting-quick presentation on the Personera. (Watch out for this one! Personera is taking full advantage of Facebook's traffic and it's going to be big.)Read more...
And we're off
xsyn's blog at cognasium, January 18, 2010. Various projects were showcased which peaked interest: [...] Personera - An interesting project that piggyback's on Facebook in order to put together a profile of pictures etc, in order for you to create personalised calendars, wallpaper or gifts.Read more...
Personera: Personalized Print Calendars Made From Your Facebook Content
Slapstart, January 11, 2010. Personera's aim is to make the offline world as personalized and relevant as the online one. The result is a great gift idea for yourself, your friends, or perhaps for people who aren't on Facebook regularly like your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older friends.Read more...
Personera: A better Facebook app built by Africans
ICTworks, January 8, 2010. So often Africa is a consumer of software applications written by outsiders that its great to hear of a home-grown app that is actually better than its competition.StartUp Africa writes about Personera which can create personalized print calendars using Facebook content. Ismail says this service is better than its rivals as well.
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Printed personalized facebook calendars
StartupAfrica, January 8, 2010. Personera, a South African based startup which launched in November last year seems to have some competition, from copy cat services. The company was launched by South African entrepreneur Sheran Amod. [...] It took a mere two months for the service to be copied, however i have tested the service from Itasveer and Personera, and its clear that Personera is much more well thought out.Read more...
New Websites You Want to See
The Businessmakers Radio Show, January 6, 2010. Katie and Esther discuss the funky small businesses that are making waves in today's economy.Katie: "So Personera's really cool to me because it takes what a lotta people are feeling really comfortable with. [...] So it takes this little realm, where you already have content. You already totally love and feel, you know, amazing in, and it lets you pull your content from Facebook into printed materials."
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Personera.com-Another Facebook Derived Business
GreatStartups.com, December 31, 2009. The site is real simple to use and with the launch behind them, Personera.com looks forward to creating new markets in old media.Read more...
Top Websites-Personera-Stop Forgetting Birthdays
Top Site Tally, December 19, 2009. Make a printed calendar of your Facebook friends' birthdays, photos and events. Just connect your Facebook account and add the information you want to add to your calendar. So far, there is just one product - the calendar - with plans for more in the future.Read more...
Personera.com - Bringing The Online World Offline
Killer Startups, December 18, 2009. There is no real reason why the offline and the online world should stand apart. In actuality, the social web implies that both dimensions are correlative. [...] It is a simple service, granted, but I dare say that the best is yet to come. Having print products which are based on what goes online is becoming a new, clear trend.Read more...
Pasgemaakte Tempo-kalender
Tempo, December 1, 2009. Hier is 'n lekker bonus! Bestel jou pasgemaakte Huisgenoot-Tempo-kalender deur op die skakel op die Facebook-blad te klik of besoek www.personera.com. Jy kan die 2010-kalender bestel met Facebook-foto's van jouself en foto's van jou gunsteling-musiekmense. Al jou Facebook-vriende se verjaardae sal outomaties daarin verskyn.Download PDF version.
Personera: Print Out Your Favorite Facebook Content
App Sheriff, November 25, 2009. Personera is your life in print. When media is concerned, the offline world has be as personalized and also relevant to us as the online world. In order to make that happen, we are going for one print product at a time.If you have wished to print your favorite Facebook photos in high quality and for the next year if you would like to have a calendar which is 100% tailored to you, then you can start creating your Personera Calendar right away.
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Pixable lets you print out customized calendars from Facebook content
DigitalBeat, November 24, 2009. Personera, a new startup out of South Africa, similarly connects to Facebook, but doesn't allow for the same degree of customization, only allowing for either all or no birthdays or birthdays based on an existing Facebook friend list, although Personera's interface is somewhat cleaner and easier to use.Read more...
FIRST LOOK: Personera - Your Facebook Calendar.
samrag.com, November 15, 2009. It is almost sad how little we print of photos after the whole world went digital, but many smart services such as Personera might help change that. [...] The whole process is very simple [...]Read more...
South African entrepreneur sets example for GEW participants
Global Entrepreneurship Week Blog, November 13, 2009. The format for the calendars is quite simple, yet ingenious. Friends' birthdays, upcoming events and photos are lifted from Facebook and printed on the 12-month calendar, each one unique to the user. In a world that has shifted almost entirely from print to digital, Personera works in the opposite way.Read more...
Personera verkauft personalisierte Kalender - Facebook sei Dank
Leander Wattig, November 12, 2009. Personalisierte Produkte werden immer wichtiger und auch immer leichter herstellbar. Die Personalisierung kann zudem Produkte aufwerten, die sonst nur auf begrenztes Interesse stoßen. Das haben sich auch die Macher von Personera gedacht. [...] Ein kluger Ansatz.Read more...
Personera - Your life in print
neurosoftware.ro programming blog, November 12, 2009. Create a personalized calendar with all your Facebook content. All about you, a unique print calendar to suit your style.Read more...
Personera launches Facebook-created calendars
VatorNews, November 12, 2009. Facebook Connect-powered site seeks to excite users about actual, physical calendars.Read more...
Personera Connects With Facebook To Make Custom Print Calendars
TechCrunch, November 11, 2009. Launching today, Personera, hopes to bring print calendars into the Web Age by combining the old with the new. The company is offering the world's first print calendar that is personalized with the birthdays of your Facebook friends, upcoming events, and photos.Read more...
Personera Launches Facebook Personalized Print Calendars for Everyone
Personera, Cape Town, South Africa, November 13, 2009. Whoever declared that print was dead may soon have to swallow their words. Personera (www.personera.com), an online to offline media technology startup, launched its unique service to Facebook users around the world this week. The company is offering the world's first print calendar that is fully personalized with a user's Facebook friends' birthdays, upcoming events, and photos. Personera is also first to launch under the banner of the Silicon Cape initiative, a government and industry endorsed movement to create a global Silicon Valley style startup culture in Cape Town, South Africa.Read more...
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