Elburn site offers a peep at what federal lawmakers are up to
An Elburn-based Web site aims to keep taxpayers and voters informed by gathering together information from across the Web about federal legislators.
Peepgov.com launched in March by three friends who met as students at Kaneland High School. Nick Secrest, 23 of Elburn; Brian Signorella, 23, of Sycamore; and Nic Borg, 23, of San Francisco, worked together by designing and funding the project themselves. Borg also co-founded Edmondo.com, which later caught the attention of a venture capital group that began funding his site and took him to California.
Signorella and Secrest continue to work here, hoping one day to expand Peepgov.com to include state legislators.
"Our website is very simple and pulls in information on each congressional leader in real time," Secrest said.
The site, which uses ZIP codes to search, ranks U.S. senators and congressmen based on Internet activity. The real-time format provides changes throughout the day so users can see who is currently the most talked about leader, Secrest said.
The legislators also are ranked, called a PeepScore, which shows how they are trending throughout the week on each leader's page. The user can see all legislators and how they rank on the leaderboard page. Within that page, filters allow you to see who is the most talked about by state, party, House/Senate, gender and the most active, said Secrest.
He said he got the idea when he flew back from Washington, D.C., and was sitting next to U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska's 1st congressional district.
"We talked for awhile and I began to wonder who my congressman was," Secrest said. "So, I got home that night and tried to figure it out, at that time not knowing what district I was in or anything. It took me at least an hour to figure it out."
He wanted a quicker, more efficient way to learn about his elected official, so he partnered with his friends to develop Peepgov.com.
"I am like most people where we don't know much about politics and who represents us," Secrest said. "I wanted to make it easy for people to follow and understand what there congressional leaders are doing, saying and what the public is saying about them."
Surfing: Hoffman Estates-based High Voltage Software (www.high-voltage.com), a video game developer, offered high school students an inside look at careers during its recent Career Day event. It included live motion capture demonstrations, presentations by industry pros and what it takes to make a video game.
• Chicago-based CouponCabin.com launched CouponClub, which provides an offer each week with discounts of up to 75 percent for products. Users must sign up to get the special offers delivered into their e-mail box.
• Social travel network WhereIveBeen.com has received about $750,000 in venture funding from Lightback, the investment arm created by Groupon founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, both of Chicago.
• Follow Anna Marie Kukec on Facebook and LinkedIn and as AMKukec on Twitter.