At Minnesota’s most recent tech mixer, MinneDemo, I had a chance to explain 3rd Party Feedback to a video crew from Minnov8 in around 5 seconds. The video gives a great taste of the various startups doing interesting work in Minnesota today. If you want to jump ahead to see me drink beer and talk about 3rd Party Feedback, click to 3:00.

Another great video from 612 Authentic.

I had a chance to join the Minnov8 Gang podcast crew for their 20th show. They make up a media site covering all things Minnesota tech.

Of course, we found time to chat about the launch of 3rd Party Feedback.

One area of focus for Minnov8 is start-ups. As Steve Borsch mentioned during the show, it’s amazing how many start-ups are missing extremely fundamental elements on their websites, such as an explanation of what their websites do. It’s perfectly understandable why this happens. Start-up founders tend to be more focused on technology than the business side of their service or product. They also forget that not everyone is as familiar with their offering as they are. This is why it’s great to solicit feedback from a group of people who can give you a truly fresh perspective on what you’ve missed.

Minnesota based consumer electronics retailer, Best Buy, was mentioned during the show. Unfortunately, the topic was related to current and pending buyouts as the company weathers the downturn in the economy. A company like this could benefit from using 3rd Party Feedback to test numerous aspects of their website. For example, find out what people thing about the site’s homepage, search functionality, category pages, product detail pages, and checkout form. Feedback leading to even the slightest of improvements to any of those page types would generate a positive return on an investment in this type of research.