I have the pleasure of being a sounding board while jonathan thought through the ideas and approaches behind awe.sm. I have to admit that I was skeptical at first - not sure if it was more by the concept or the entrepreneur :) I also have to admit that I was only one of many sounding boards, and likely not the most valuable one. For those who haven't heard of it yet, Awe.sm is an "open sharing analytics platform -a way to instrument, track, and analyze how content and attention flow through the social web."
Having been in corporate development at Yahoo! for the past 4.5 years, I have heard seen more than enough companies attempt to aggregate the data behind socially distributed content across multiple channels, and I hadn't come across anything that addressed the needs of multiple constituents the way the totally.awe.sm does. Its not just a URL shortener (or something that a creates a shortened link Web address ???). Its not trying to re-invent an analytics platform. Its an approach that leverages consumer behaviors and established and evolving technologies to help people make sense of social distribution. Take a look into it. Its worth it.
Evidenced by today's coverage, he deserves credit for Founding the Snowball Factory and releasing awe.sm. Congratulations Strauss!
