Plano dad launches micro-blogging site like Twitter — with a twist

by Sarah Blaskovich

PLANO — Love it or hate it, Twitter lacks focus, said Plano entrepreneur Jonathan Leger. And he thinks he's got a better idea: Cut the crap.

“I love the Twitter concept of micro-blogging where you can throw out tips or hints. But if you browse Twitter for very long, there's lots of useless junk,” Leger said. In comes his new concept TipDrop.com. Created in his house in Plano, the site allows people to share all those little tricks of the trade without also reading what their friends ate for breakfast -- or worse, see a twitpic of it.

Turns out, people love to be asked for their opinion. Users write tips about anything under the sun, and other users add their two cents. Example: I learned that the best way to attract a great mate is to “feel that you're marvelous.” OK, I'll buy that. Next, the best way to prevent foot blisters is to put on dress socks before sliding on cotton ones. Even more interested in that one, that's clever. Then a weird one: The guy (or gal?) with 14 cats -- not making that up -- tells me best practices for cleaning a litterbox. No thanks.

But Leger has a plan to keep readers like me interested so I don't bounce after the TMI Tidy Cats post. Similar to Digg, TipDrop users vote on tips that they like and dislike. As a tipper receives more “yes” points, their credibility score and tips begin to have more value on the site, placing them higher on the page and making them more searchable. Leger's “credibility engine” is automated so his small staff doesn't lose time updating.

“Being a small company, I've wanted to take the Google notion that you can create an algorithm around everything. So, the users get to decide who gets to talk and who doesn't,” he said.

They seem to like it. After the first 24 hours, the mobile version was launched. Video tipping became available four days later. And now, 12 days out, TipDrop garnered 1.5 million page views and has added nearly 4,000 tips.

His crew of six employees work out of their homes, including a help desk guy in Spain, a graphic artist in the UK, and several others in the U.S. As a computer programmer and web developer by trade, Leger said he has met some of the most intelligent people he knows virtually. “In a global economy, they don't have to live right here,” he said. “Long as they have an Internet connection, that works for me.” And though Leger is from Plano, TipDrop is not designed as a local site.

TipDrop snubs Twitter's 140 characters by offering its users 255 characters. (Guilty. Sometimes we need those few extra words.) Leger calls 255 characters “typically enough space for a quality tip.”

He offers a last boon for frequent users: With AdSense, referring visitors to the tip sheets can create money -- dollars for clicks. “It pays them back for using our site,” Leger said. (He's also paid back through ad revenue, which is the site's main source of income.)

Leger anticipates that site traffic will plateau in the immediate future before a surge in six months. “I'm already seeing very interesting improvements. Google Analytics limits their search at 18 million pageviews a month,” he said, laughing. “So if I go over that, I'll gladly make a phone call to check our status.”

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous