Hello Assetizers,

We’re happy to report some new coverage that our Twitter Parking service has received. Read the TechCrunch article here. I think Daniel did a great job capturing the essence.

Readers have raised some interesting issues in the Comments section of the TC article, and we thought it would be a good idea to address some of them here.

First, be sure that the Parking and Buy/Sell services are separate, so any accounts that are ‘parked’ will not be listed on our site for others to see without your permission. While monetized accounts are certainly more appealing when sold (and hence, a connection between the two service can be made), we will not force this connection on users or list parked accounts automatically.

Second, a little background on why we’re optimistic re: Twitter’s TOS. There are already services that provide users with content (e.g. YoTwits, Twitterfeed) and services that provide users with the ability to monetize their accounts (e.g. TweetROI and Twittad). Assetize’s parking service simply marries the two concepts. We’re hopeful that since Twitter has accepted the above services, they’ll be accepting of ours as well.

Our goal remains to help users monetize their social accounts, and we thought this would be a good step towards that. Thoughts? Would love to hear from you in the Comments section.

Talk soon,
Saif

Most Twitter accounts are inactive. Is yours? You can make money without lifting a finger.

Assetize has introduced a new way for you to monetize your social accounts: Twitter Account Parking! [Our interns call it the Bird's Nest. Pretty clever of them]

How can you park your account? Follow these simple steps:

1. Provide your account information

2. Give us keywords related to your account. We’ll use these to make sure that the content we provide is relevant. (Your only step*)

3. We provide the content and insert periodic ads

4. You make money

*Seriously, that’s it. You might want to come back and check your earnings once in a while though. Seeing your account balance grow is always soothing for the soul.

We’re currently in beta and sending out invites daily. To learn more or request an invite, visit http://assetize.com/park

Happy parking,

Saif

Greetings Assetizers!

We’re excited to announce two updates to our site:

1) You can now request accounts that aren’t already listed on Assetize – either directly from our homepage or following a search. We act as your broker in contacting the owner, and you still benefit from our escrow services to guarantee safe transfers.

A special thanks to all the users who suggested this in our Feedback Forum!

2) In the most obvious of changes, we’ve got a new UI! If you don’t remember what we used to look like, here are Before and After screenshots:

Before

After

Talk soon,
Saif

… To Assemble a Chair? Answer: 3

We are happy to announce that Assetize has hired three new interns!

John, Valentin and Samir (L to R) joined us this week, and have already started cranking away on our current site. Pretty soon, they will be working on our top-secret project as well.

Thanks to all who applied, and keep checking our blog. We plan to make some more hires come September.

Talk soon,

Saif

Photo credit: Mike’s brand new BlackBerry Bold

Rockstar Developer

Launch fast? Check.

TechCrunch and NYT coverage? Check.

Keep getting better? Check… but we can always move faster.

That’s where you come in.  Assetize is looking for a Rockstar Web Development Intern to work with them over the next 2 months and build out some really cool features.  Stealing a page from many other startups’ playbooks, the salary is zero (which, coincidentally, matches our salary!). You do, however, get the following:

* Awesome experience working for a startup. You can even put “Rockstar” as the job title in your resume
* Exposure to other brilliant minds – we share our office space (at Yonge & King in Toronto) with many other startups and a VC firm
* Participate in weekly mentoring sessions by industry experts in technology, funding, legal, PR, marketing and HR
* Meet a who’s who of experts at our weekly socials
* First dibs on paid internship and full-time opportunities in the future

Here’s what you need to qualify:

* Your own laptop
* Experience in web development; CakePHP and Web Design skills are a plus
* A drive to change the world (that’s why we’re here)

If you don’t have all of the above, drop us a line anyway.  We can try and figure something out.

This is the most fun we’ve ever had working, and we’re sure you will feel the same way – especially if you’ve always thought about starting something of your own and want to live the entrepreneur life for a few weeks.

If this sounds like your type of thing, email us at saif [at] assetize dot com.  As a start, also tell us what 2-3 features you think Assetize should add to its current site. Remember: our goal is to help people make money off their social (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) accounts.

Talk soon,
Saif

As some of you know, Assetize has been in the news and some well-known blogs recently. Here are links to some of the coverage:

• June 12, 2009 – TechCrunch: This Is Getting Ridiculous: Startups Already Trying To “Assetize” Facebook Vanity URLs
• June 13, 2009 – TechCrunch: Hands Down, The Best Facebook Vanity URL
• June 15, 2009 – NY Times: Celebrity, Product and Joke Names Grabbed as Facebook Vanity URLs

Not a lot of love, huh? :) We’ve seen comments on various other sites that are for and against selling accounts. What are your thoughts on it? Add a comment and let us know.

Talk soon,
Saif

Hello world.  Our site launched on May 6th, but this blog has been a long time coming.

First, a little background: In the last few months, we noticed a few things happening that led us to launch Assetize.  For example:

1) Andrew Baron put his Twitter account up for sale on eBay, and bidding reached > $1,000 before he deleted the auction
2) CNN acquired the @cnnbrk Twitter account
3) The Facebook “Kisses” Page was sold to OraBrush, which beat Hershey’s in a bidding war

Since online social accounts were already being sold in private transactions, we figured that a visible, public marketplace made sense; and after spending a couple of months throwing together a functional site, Assetize was born.

Sorry it took us so long to get this blog up, but we’ll try and update it on a regular basis with news and thoughts. We’d also love your feedback on how to get better. Feel free to comment on our posts, email us at info [at] assetize.com, or use the Feedback button on our homepage. We look forward to hearing from you.

Talk soon,
Saif