Jeff Mitchell, voeveo CTO

Annabel Youens, voeveo Community Director

Many thanks to Kate MacPherson who took fabulous photos with a smile - I’d highly recommend her for any work you need done in Wellington.

Work that camera Jeff & Annabel!

Obvious by the days between this post and the one below I have been a bit slack in my blogging duties. I can only say that I have been very busy with voeveo, optimizing some of the architecture, working with the development team on new features, and putting a lot (a whole lot) of effort into seeking investment with the business team. A typical VC type query that seems to come up a lot is, “What’s to stop so and so multinational mega-corp from building the same thing.” The real answer in almost all cases is nothing. There is absolutely nothing to stop anyone from trying to build the same thing. Just like there’s nothing to stop McDonalds’s from building a Search Engine and competing with Google and Yahoo. That might sound a bit silly and exaggerated. McDonald’s is not likely to divert their resources from the highly competitive fast food industry and focus on the SE business, but this isn’t obvious when talking about Internet companies. All services on the web tend to get lumped into the same broad industry term, “Internet Company,” regardless of what the underlying business model is. Therefore if “they” are on the web and “you” are on the web, then they are in the same business as you. I’m not saying it isn’t a fair question to ask. Anyone seeking funding has to be prepared to answer it and give damn good reasons why they are the better choice. But I do disagree with giving large multinational mega-corps some sort of advantage because of their size. The Dreaded Google I’m gonna use Google as an example, because they are the typical company used in the “What’s to stop…” scenario. According to this logic I guess every person on the planet who has a good idea for the Internet better just forget about trying it because of Google. Let’s all just sit back and wait for Google to build everything on the Internet. Google does not have a strong track record of duplicating an idea and automatically dominating the space. Actually I’m wrong, there was one instance when Google duplicated a business idea and dominated. It was something called a ‘Search Engine’, and back then they were the little guys competing against bigger players. YouTube is probably the most high profile example. Google put out their own video service, and then decided it would be easier (and probably cheaper in the long run) to buy and work with YouTube. There are plenty other less high profile examples. Did you know Google has a social network site and a photo sharing site? Possibly not, because they don’t dominate either space. There has been some recent dissatisfaction expressed with Google’s blogging tool, Blogger. WordPress continues to improve and grow through hard-work. They’re always building new features, reacting to and working with their loyal community. So why is it that Google doesn’t own every business space on the web? One big reason is probably because Google is known as a Search Engine first, their core business model and brand, just like burgers & fries are McDonald’s. That means people may not prefer them as an off-deck provider of independent mobile content (like voeveo), just like they aren’t the preferred video or a photo sharing service. Secondly, within every business space on the web, just like the real world, there is plenty of room for competition. Social Networking sites are hot, with Facebook and MySpace on top at the moment, yet Bebo who is running 3rd (by a bit of a margin) was just acquired by AOL for 850 million dollars. LinkedIn has found a niche within the business social network. Come to think of it where did Facebook come from? Didn’t MySpace have the social networking thing sewn up? Why did they even bother? I guess they thought they had a better idea…. Lastly, what does it really take for an Internet service to succeed?

• The team
• Usability
• Personal Preference
• Relationships
• Loyalty
• A willingness to react to your customers needs
• Scalability
• Dependability
• Money
• and about a billion other factors that are just as difficult for Google as for anyone else.

Money and technical resources are no guarantee of success. No doubt funding is needed, but having more money does not always equal a better chance of succeeding. There are a billion other factors equally (or more) important. Unfortunately, they often depend on money as well. The Internet is the biggest level playing field out there. More often than not small, creative, smart companies can out-compete larger, slow-moving behemoths. The little guys are closer to the product and the reason for creating it goes beyond a decision to expand their portfolio of services. They are passionate about it and they believe in it. They can react and adapt quickly. They are hungry. The more important question is what’s to stop another small, creative company from competing? The answer again is nothing. It comes down to everything I’ve said above. Will it be easy for them? No way in hell! - Jeff Mitchell, CTO

voeveo has teamed up with the RSA to take the poppy into the digital age!

Buy a mobile poppy and support the RSA’s Annual Poppy Appeal. All proceeds go to support war veterans and their families.

Using your blog, YouTube and other online services like Flickr is a free and easy way to promote your business. Plus it can be heaps of fun!

Pixie, one of our super sellers on voeveo, is really taking advantage of the Internet and getting creative. She’s got a great handle on using free online tools to promote her ringtones and videotones.

Go Pixie!

I had the pleasure of being asked to contribute to an article on Generation C by Jake Pearce and Simon Young for Idealog.

“…Unlike any generation before it, Generation C is growing as people of all ages discover newer, better ways of doing things.

Why does it look like this? In media, music and porn have always led the way, so it’s a useful indicator for other industries. The pornographic industry was the first to take the camera seriously in the late 1800s, while the music industry pioneered the use of the Internet around product distribution.

But this vision flows from the nature of Generation C—digital natives, people connected in a digital world. Gen C is defined by an attitude, not a demographic.”

I like the idea that our sellers are united by their attitude and not their age or day job. It’s certainly true on voeveo - our sellers all love digital media and the Internet. Now they’re looking to extend their business to the mobile phone market.

I love meeting and talking to our sellers - they make voeveo better everyday.

Go Generation C!

>> Ch-ch-changes article on Idealog

It’s all about the doof-doof-doof and oonst-oonst-oonst in the voeveo office this week!

Enter some of our favourite dance sellers on voeveo:

• Supergodzilla
• Yahel
• Zetan Spore
• Mylo
• The Knife
• The Crystal Method
  
• Ministry of Sound

Come and get your super dance ringtones and fulltracks!

SuperGodzilla put this together and put it online for our site.

With all the stress, ups and downs, and hard work; this is the stuff that really makes it worthwhile.

Big Thanks for reminding me why I’m doing this.

PS. Take Me Over Nasty has been my ringtone for the last month or so.

Zeroin, One of our extremely talented and funny sellers on voeveo helped us to create this for our easter promotion. I really hope we can keep working with all the talented pool of artists voeveo is privileged to have on board so far.

Thanks guys! I know voeveo doesn’t say it enough, but voeveo loves you! It really does. sniff