5 NoCo companies you should know: Bulb

by Brad Shannon
February 12, 2014

[ibimage==26015==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-right]Fort Collins-based bulb launched its current beta form last summer, after being in the making for nearly two years. Maggie Shafer, who works in user engagement at the software company, describes Bulb as a web app for publishing, in its most basic form. “Bulb provides an easy, simple, elegant way to publish online,” she said. “It allows users to structure their content in the way they’d like it to be explored, unlike a blog, and requires no web design or development skills at all.”

The company was founded by CSU grads and brothers David and John Runkles. They started bulb with the proceeds from the sale of their software development firm, Ssuru, and used some of the same developers for both companies.

Shafer said the brothers are passionate about education, and were not satisfied with what was available when it came to Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and other software for education. They were inspired in mid-2011 to create an educational tool that was useful to those outside of education, too, to share ideas, lessons, and more.

“It works really well in the classroom and many of our 15,000 users are teachers and students,” Shafer said. “We also have a lot of TED and TEDx speakers, those using it as a digital portfolio, and others sharing ideas with small private groups instead of publishing it to the world.”

She notes that teachers find it useful to track student progress and get a better, more well-rounded picture of their comprehension and mastery of a subject. Students use it to publish their papers and projects and create digital portfolios. Bulb’s structure also encourages long-form thinking, she said.

Bulb is free, and will always be free to publish or share information. A pending update will offer a pro-level account with more space and the ability to upload more HD videos, along with a Groups feature that permits publishing to specific custom groups such as an organization, team or specific class.

 

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