As you may have seen on TechCrunch, we have announced that the Touchstone team has accepted a round of Angel funding from a local investor. I'd like to thank Marshall, Michael and Ouriel from TechCrunch for being so kind and generous with their time and giving us so much praise in the post!

We are very excited about the possibilities of Touchstone to help people filter their incoming information and stay informed while they work. By closing this round we will be able to accelerate our development and strengthen our position as the first client-side attention management platform.

Here's the official sounding press release for your reference.

FYI "Faraday Media" is the name of the newly formed parent company.

Faraday Media announce significant local funding for Touchstone development

Faraday Media today announce they have accepted significant funding from a local investor to accelerate development of Touchstone, the first Client-Side Alerting and Attention Management Engine.

Touchstone is designed to allow users to manage what information is important to them and how that information is displayed.

The recent trend towards web-based/social software and syndication via RSS and Atom has resulted in many users suffering from information overload. Touchstone helps to filter the noise. The application can model a user’s interests and then compare incoming information against their personal profile. In this way they are only interrupted by personally relevant information.

“Touchstone offers an opportunity for RSS to hit the mainstream by delivering information in a way that makes sense to the average user.” said co-founder of Faraday Media, Chris Saad.

The funding comes amid testing and collaboration by early adopters in a variety of industries including media, financial services, application development and attention management. The common thread is a desire to empower people to stay informed without getting overwhelmed or distracted.

“This is uncharted territory when you consider we are combining both alerting and attention management on the client-side.” says Ashley Angell co-founder of Faraday Media. “We are gratified that our efforts are being recognised by users globally and local investors alike.”

About the Company

Faraday Media Develops Touchstone – the first Client-Side Attention Management Engine. It is designed to simply and effectively cater to a diverse range of customers.

For Individuals Touchstone helps users tune out the noise so that they can focus on what matters while they work.

For Publishers and Application Developers Touchstone helps publishers and application developers reach their audience and users so that they can alert them to new information in real-time.

For the Enterprise Touchstone helps management to deliver messages to staff and customers in a way that bypasses the spam filled email inbox and allows staff to keep track of important industry information and competitor analysis.

Please contact me if you have any questions at chris@touchstonegadget.com