“Education is all a matter of building bridges.” – Ralph Ellison

This is a quick study on products, services or tools that reach out to users in effort to educate.

Been working on this reputation.com cycling kit on my spare time. The original design was white and very ‘flowing’ with long stripes… I figured to try the opposite and was *semi-inspired* by trek-leopard and garmin-cervelo. Need to throw a couple more hours into it… but this should do for now.

“Do works anywhere – on your computer, tablet and your iPhone. Your information is always available and up-to-date from wherever you are and whichever device you’re using.” – Do

“Personal data is an asset and should be explicitly controlled by the owner. A whole new industry will emerge to provide people with the tools to effectively price their data.” -- Personal

“Zaarly is changing how the economy works. That’s all… just a little global economic disruption. Zaarly enables people to ask for anything from people nearby. A simple idea; but when it takes root in a community, the impact is profound. Buyers decide what they want and the price they want to pay and someone from the community makes it happen, creating a job and keeping money local. Zaarly helps anyone invest directly into their local economy.” -- Zaarly

“Chartbeat provides real-time data analytics and performance alerts for your website. Chartbeat is a revolutionary real-time analytics service that enables people to understand emergent behaviour in real-time and exploit or mitigate it. Chartbeat launched in April 2009 and is used by some of the most popular sites on the web including the Onion, Mahalo, Pitchfork, and DailyKos. Based in New York, the team is led by General Manager Tony Haile and is part of betaworks, a media company focused on the real-time web and social media. The best way to understand Chartbeat is to try the demo or take a tour. Customer testimonials can be found in our buzz section.” -- Chartbeat

“Listening to music has always been one of those experiences that’s better together, whether at a concert or hanging out with friends. But the digital music revolution so far has been defined by a solitary experience. Turntable.fm is bringing the social value of music to the the digital music experience by letting people experience and discover music together — live — online.” -- Turntable.fm

“Fab.com features daily design inspirations and sales at up to 70% off retail. Fab.com is design. Everyone, everywhere can benefit from good design. Exceptional customer experience is our most valuable design. Behind every great design is an even greater story. Our team is designed for success. We’re on a mission to be the world’s most valuable design resource. Smile (you’re designed to)” -- Fab.com

“Sprout Social builds powerful, intuitive social media management tools used by thousands of businesses across the globe. We help businesses delight their audience and get real value from their social efforts.” -- Sprout Social

“We love nonprofits. Particularly small ones. Having served more than 8 years with a nonprofit and helping friends and family with their nonprofits along the way, Dodd has seen the issues these small charities face when it come to websites and online fundraising. They need help but don’t always have the knowledge or big budget to seek it out.” Bellstrike

“American Apparel is a vertically integrated manufacturer, distributor and retailer, based in downtown Los Angeles, California. We currently employ approximately 10,000 people globally (about 5,000 in LA), and operate more than 285 retail stores in 20 countries.

Within our business model, knitting, dyeing, cutting, sewing, photography, marketing, distribution and design all happen in the company’s facilities in Los Angeles. The company operates the largest garment factory in the United States, at a time when most apparel production has moved offshore. With our recently opened stores in China, we are now selling Made in USA clothing in the largest consumer market in the world.” American Apparel

“The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:

True Reach: How many people you influence
Amplification: How much you influence them
Network Impact: The influence of your network” -- Klout

“Strava grew out of our own needs as athletes. With busy lives requiring much solo training, we missed the sense of camaraderie and friendly competition that drove us to achieve our best through training with others. We envisioned Strava as the means to put our workouts and races into context. We call that social fitness.” – Strava

“Affine technology was born out of the high tech intelligence community. Co-Founder Mike Sullivan was a Research Associate at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) in Alexandria, VA, where he performed research and technical analysis in support of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Intelligence Community. It was there he came across what would be Affine’s online video targeting platform. Soon thereafter, a partnership was developed with Co-Founder Bobby Impollonia, and the two engineers decided to bring the new and unique technology to the world of advertising. Now based in San Francisco, Affine works with large brands and agencies in the online and mobile video sectors. The company is funded by Highland Capital Partners and Crosslink Capital, has multiple patents pending, a large client list, and tons of momentum. The Affine mission: To be the currency for online video.”

“In 2003, after being unable to find a way to elegantly publish his personal website, Anthony Casalena began work on the software that is now the Squarespace Platform. Since its inception, Squarespace has blossomed into a product that powers tens of thousands of sophisticated websites for businesses, bloggers, and professionals worldwide and currently serves billions of hits per month.”