For Irish taxpayers, we have just kicked off our BES 2008 offering which is built around the LouderVoice B2B Services. The Business Expansion Scheme provides a way to invest in approved businesses and receive tax-relief on that investment.

If you are interested in hearing more about this investment opportunity or discussing direct equity investment, please contact Conor O’Neill on conor AT loudervoice DOT com or +353-87-9790297.

In summary:

• B2C www.loudervoice.com launched May 2007
• B2B business.loudervoice.com launched October 2008
• Irish Web Awards 2008 Best New Web Service Nominee
• Irish Software Association New Company Award 2008 Nominee
• Participant in the Genesis Enterprise Programme 2008
• Enterprise Ireland Grant Funding as High Potential Start-Up in 2007
• Existing BES Investment in 2007
• New investor funds to be used to grow and market the service Europe-wide
• Revenue Approved Scheme
• Tax Relief available for 2008
• Defined exit mechanism

What a fantastic couple of weeks in the life of LouderVoice. Yesterday we found out we’ve been shortlisted for New Company of The Year by The Irish Software Association. This is one helluva heavy-duty event and we’re nervous about the interview process already.

There will be lots more announcements and coverage in the next two weeks so watch closely.

Over the past few months we have been trialling our business services with several clients. Some of those are already live, others will go live over the next quarter. We now have a very nice brochure site to go with these services and a very powerful content moderation back-end for our clients.

The LouderVoice for Business site gives the high level overview of our services which are currently in three areas:

• White-label review service based on a secure XML API
• SMS reviews and customer feedback
• Custom review widgets

If we were excited to be on the long-list, we’re utterly gobsmacked to be shortlisted for best new Web Application/Service in the Irish Web Awards. It’s not just that we’re in the shortlist, look at the awesome apps we are in with:

 

• Bookmeetingroom – I only wrote about this great app recently on Web2Ireland
• PollDaddy – I use this ALL the time. One of my fave webapps ever. 
• Twitterfone – Not just dead useful, one of the most beautiful web-site designs of 2008.
• Decisions for Heroes – Read this. That’s them that is. Utter brilliance.

 

This is the inaugural year for the Irish Web Awards and we’re giddier than the giddiest people in Giddytown to be in the long-list for Best New Web Application/Service.

It’s one hell of a set of webapps there and we’re humbled to be in with them.

We kicked off SMS reviewing last year using the same structured message format which we devised for Twitter and Jaiku. Whilst it suits a lot of our users, particularly those who want their reviews to appear instantly, many others felt that the structure was overly complex.

Based on this user feedback, we are now launching Simple SMS Reviews. The idea here is that you send your review to the same number as before (+353-87-9409325 or +44-778-6205133), you begin your SMS with the keyword “Re” and then the remainder of the SMS is your review in whatever style you like.

Conor is on The Right Hook radio show this evening on Newstalk with Joe Drumgoole from PutPlace. He’ll be talking about the LouderVoice service in general and kicking off an SMS reviews push in conjunction with the show. You can listen live on the web here.

As part of this, we are launching our Simple SMS Review service. There’ll be more detail in the next post but the key point is that unlike the existing service, no structure is required on your reviews. We also provide custom keywords for our business clients and partners.

We’ve had lots of feedback that our support mechanisms on LouderVoice were weak. Up until today, you could email info@ or leave a comment here on the blog. We know this isn’t good enough and have decided to make use of Get Satisfaction to provide a better service in this area.

You’ll see the Get Satisfaction logo in the sidebar of every page. If you run into any problems at all with the site or find things you don’t understand, then click on the logo. As time goes by, hopefully you’ll find a solution or answer already there.

The results are in and the winner of the gorgeous Spicendipity BBQ Hamper is Katie Murphy from Cork. Congratulations Katie, the hamper is on its way from Tullamore right now. Her review of TOC matched our own experiences perfectly.

The Taste of Cork Food Festival is coming this weekend in the deep south of Ireland. There will by myriad stands offering food and beverages to sample including lots of famous Munster Artisan producers.

We’re partnering with several of the exhibitors including Ummera and Bubble Brothers to encourage those who attend to review both the event and the individual stands. Reviews can be submitted by any of the usual methods but SMS seems the most appropriate. Keep an eye out for our flyers on the stands.