Don Thorson - Marketing 2.0

Ribbit. The First Four Months

Well, I never was a prolific blogger - but with the onset of the microblog it's even worse. Anytime I spend doing my own social media these days seems to be in shorter and shorter bursts of Twitters and Facebook status updates. (I'm totally enjoying Twitter as new medium). I'm also spending time writing the Ribbit blog.

As I do every so often, I'm going to use this post to update everyone on my marketing activities over  the last couple of months - this time with Ribbit. Ribbit is an "open platform for telephony innovation" , which we decided to position as "Silicon Valley First Phone Company"- which didn't go unnoticed at launch.

The first strategic launch goal was to create basic company awareness among the press, influencer's, analysts - and what better way to do it than to come right out and claim you were a new kind / better kind of  telco. I'll write a lot more about this after the dust settles - but for now, it appears to have helped us accomplish our first strategic communication and positioning goal. (and as with all good positioning , it also accurately describes who and what we are).

Rather than write pages on every single marketing strategy and nuance, I'm going to simply list the milestones and activities around Ribbit and give an overview of what I've been doing. Getting the company "on the playing field" and gaining mind share were clear launch objectives. Which explains our double launch strategy: Phase one, launch the company pre- Christmas. Phase Two: launch the consumer application at DEMO in Jan.

Ribbit Marketing Activities (So Far) Dec 07 - April, 08)

   

Dec 17  - Company Introduction / Press Tour

Jan   7 - Consumer Electronic Show - "Bloghaus" involvement
Jan 15 - Wireless Roundtable - Influencer Event
Jan 17 - Salesforce "Tour de Force" Conference - Award Nominations
Jan 18 - TechCrunch "Crunchie Awards" -Double Nominations
Jan 28 - DEMO - Amphibian Product Announcement- Palm Springs
Feb 26 - Flex 360 Conference - Developer Event
Mar 13 - eComm Communication Conference
Mar 17 - Ribbit Spawn - Our First Official Developer Event
Mar 18 - Mash-Up Camp, Developer Event
Mar 20 - Under The Radar  Conference
April  9 - SD Forum, Speaking Engagement
April 21 - Wireless Innovations Conference
April 22 - Web 2.0. Blogtropol.us Involvement, San Francisco
April 22 - Flash In the Can ( FITC) Toronto

While this is a busy list of public appearances and marketing activities, it doesn't begin to describe  what's going on in the background. The bulk of Ribbit's efforts have been in business and product development.

Other Ribbit Milestones

New Hires  (25+)
First Platform" Revenue  - (customer deployed app on the Ribbit platform)
First Business Customer  - (first "Ribbit for Salesforce" revenue from satisfied Beta customers)
First Large Partner Technology Integration  - (test with global handset company)
+ 4000 Developers in Ribbit Developer ecosystem
Flash Toolkit  (Drag and Drop Voice Components ) announced and previewed
Business Development / Partner Meetings  (90+)

Stayed tuned for more news soon! If you're a start up, it just doesn't get anymore fun than this.

Digital Lifestyle Aggregators (DLAs)

Dig into the world of DLAs and the road leads to Marc Canter. A DLA is one of those things you wouldn't want to try to explain to your mom but if your profession has you anywhere near creating specifications for next generation applications, you'd better get in this game. Here are some DLA characteristics as described by Marc (which I first found via Om's synopsis on the same topic):

- integrated environment - bringing together lots of things in one place

- aggregated information - from all over the place

- highly customizable - which modules, what look and feel and what UI

- all supporting open standards to create an inter-connected meshed web

You can see the obvious relationship between these attributes and how people like Joseph Smarr and Google are describing OpenSocial, (which is a related title wave that will also hit in 2008). The opening up of applications and communities is inevitable and it will quickly become standard practice. The notion of losing access to core information as I move from one community to another or one app to another is antiquated. There is core information and connections that I never want to be detached from. In fact, I want my applications to be "intelligently" linked from the activity I'm doing and the community I'm doing it with or for. I don't only want access to information across communities and activities, I want dynamic interaction that contributes in real time to my understanding of a topic and advances the quality of my interaction with the community I'm involved with. Plaxo Pulse is making a run at this, but it's still in it's infancy.Walls between applications and communities are simply artifacts, probably of a shrink-wrap software mentality or business models that need to "own eyeballs".

All this goes hand-in hand with Doc Searl's presentation at this years Le Web in Paris , where he says on Slide 16 " Herding people into walled gardens and guessing about what makes them social will seem as absurd as it actually is"

At Ribbit, being rooted in telephony, we are awake to the losing proposition of "walled-gardens" because we are convinced that this will be the demise of traditional phone companies. Ironically, it could also be the downfall of traditional software and web application companies if they don't quickly embrace the concept of the living web.

A Big Week At Ribbit

It's been an amazing week at Ribbit. We launched the company on Monday and we've enjoyed surprise after surprise all week long. The press coverage was exceptional. Depth, accuracy, intelligent reporting. People  (bloggers / reporters) dedicated time to their writing and painted an accurate and complete story.

This is contrasted with other launches I've done where the  journalists sometimes cut, paste and reassemble other writers articles and claim it as their own. The journalist on the Ribbit launch spent considerable time interviewing us and digging deep into the  details. For a more complete list of  news coverage you can go to the Ribbit Press Page. (We apologize to the people who covered us who are not listed on the press page. So much went on this week that we were just in a scramble. We simply ran out of time to gather the posts).

Much to our surprise, we also ended up getting television and radio coverage, again where the journalist worked hard to get the story right.

This launch was not "designed" to be a consumer oriented story - it was actually focused on creating industry and developer awareness for Ribbit and the Ribbit API.  We expect the Ribbit business model to behave as a platform , as such it needs both developers to create applications and users to create marketplace "pull". This leg of the marketing was more focused on increasing the number of developers - and it was successful in that we tripled the size of the development community in one week, from around 650 to over 2,000.

In short, we are very grateful for the coverage we're getting. It's critical for a start-up to get coverage and exposure. Being a start-up, we can't buy the awareness we need, so we hope for  the journalist and bloggers to carry the story - which they did, so Thank You everyone who wrote about us, It's very much appreciated.

iPhones + iChat

"The iPhone will soon have iChat integration which will  link all iPhone users to each other as well as to Mac desktop users, to create a first of a kind, mobile global linked community". Well, that's my guess anyway. It's not rocket science. Here is the evidence I'm looking at:

Adobe is said to be adding VoIP capabilities to the next version of Flash, as had been reported by Om , as well as Tom Keating  It's also generally believed  that Apple will announce support of  Flash on the iPhone, as suggested by Walt Mossberg and widely reported by everyone else. This would be a nice little relationship between the companies. Apple brings added differentiation to the iPhone (as if it needs it), while reinforcing the  advantages of being a computer company first and a phone provider second. Adobe extends the usefulness of Flash while reinforcing it's platform characteristics.

So who cares?

End Users - End users are going to be able to carry on conversations over wi-fi networks to any other iPhone user and probably any other Mac user seamlessly and hopefully for free. (Apple could charge for the connection, but hopefully will instead see the benefit of increasing the size of their user base). The solution will have built in presence across all Mac OS devices, (and conceivably all "opted in" flash players?). If you're on Mac or iPhone and you are on the network, the system will indicate your availability.  I would watch for a video camera and video iChat to be built in before Christmas,

Telcos / Carriers - Telcos will certainly be taking notice because this play hits right at a ridiculously profitable category for them and could signal the end of their walled gardened "playground". Long distance charges and roaming revenue will rapidly decay as users simply make sure they are in a wi-fi before they make international calls. When this happens, by the way, watch for  Apple to start using telco terms like "network size" and  social media terms like "community members". Apple will be disrupting an estimated 250 billion dollar slice of the 2.5 trillion annual communication  pie.  The telcos will need to be very concerned that they don't find themselves in the position of the music industry,  trying to  negotiate with Steve Jobs on how much they can charge their customers.

Skype - Skype, and all the current VoIP players will care. Skype, being a 1.0 downloaded client, will be made technically obsolete as soon as the Flash voice component hits the streets. The Apple integration of Flash VoIP  will certainly run right through the iPhone microphone and speaker so there won't be any special equipment and there won't be a download, in the traditional sense - it will simply be supplied in an iPhone software upgrade.

Apple - Apple cares because for the last 10 years they've been trying to position themselves at the confluence of computers, entertainment and communication and this is the last leg of this three legged stool. Demonstrating massive innovation in the communication sector is positioning them for ten years of industry leadership. What comes out of the merger of the Internet and telephony is yet to be defined but it will be significant and landscape changing.

The Catch - There are two catches actually. The first issue will be VoIP call quality. The quality of a VoIP call is usually defined by a combination of the speed of the connection (size of the pipe) and the power of the processor translating the analog voice signal to digital. If the wi-fi connection is weak, the call quality will be unacceptable, leaving room for non-bandwidth dependent solutions like Jajah. The other catch is, it might not be free. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple require a .mac like account to use this service, possibly adding Voice 2.o features on the back-end to justify the cost.

PSTN Gateway - I doubt we'll see this in an early rev. but you can be sure they are also working on a wi-fi to PSTN bridge of some kind, possibly not unlike T-Mobiles recently announced Hotspot at Home service that reportedly lets you walk out of the wi-fi coverage area and get picked up by the T-Mobile cell service without dropping the call.

Any way you look at it, the telephony industry as we know it, is in for a roller-coaster of change. The good news is, the end user is about to win as a result.

 

Jajah - Year One

Today marks Jajah's first birthday and it's as good a time as any to circle back around to my own neglected blog and get everyone up to speed on what Ive been doing. I joined Jajah about 10 months ago and since then, I've been spending most of my time doing the rocketship / start-up thing. Today we announced that Jajah has signed up 2 million users in the first 12 months. We're pleased!

Importantly, these users are from 55 countries, which speaks volumes about the power of marketing 2.0 techniques and also about the global dissatisfaction users everywhere have with their existing phone companies. I'd like to take my fair share of the credit for winning these customers  - but the truth is, people are just tired of handing over large checks every month to traditional phone companies and are anxious for a better, cheaper way to stay in touch with their friends and family.

The fun part, from a marketing perspective, is that we've been able to reach these 2 million customers using low-cost social media and public relations. We are now sometimes being compared to traditional phone companies who regularly spend hundreds of dollars on customer acquisition ( Vonage , for example, spends over 300.00 to acquire a new customer) . While we spend something in the neighborhood of 2.00 dollars.

While we treat telephony as a web business, our competitors often use 1.0  marketing techniques. One of the reasons your phone bill is so high is because they are getting you to pay for the TV advertising which tries to win you as a customer - kinda crazy. We would rather use low cost out-reach and viral techniques and then pass the savings to our users. Apparently we are onto something.

The Jajah Year

It's been amazing actually. Unlike many start-ups, you could say Jajah suffers from too much news. Our problem is managing it's global distribution - this is because of the state of the art engineering team that innovates faster than any company I've ever worked with.

Check out the Jajah 12 month milestones:

• October - December 2005 - Sequoia and Globespan invests in JAJAH
• February 2006 - ICQ Founder, Yair Goldfinger joins board
• March 27, 2006 - Global launch
• May 2006 – JAJAH named to “Red Herring 100”
• May 2006 – JAJAH offers scheduled call service
• September 2006 - JAJAH offers conference calling with up to 10 callers
• September 2006 - JAJAH Mobile announced at Fall DEMO and ETRE
• October 2006 - Firefox Integration
• November 2006 - Google Gadget
• December 2006 – Free calls on Christmas - global calling promotion
• December 2006 - Media Integration - T-online, ProSiebenSat1
• January 2007 – JAJAH reaches 1.2 million registered users
• January 2007 - Apple Widget
• February 2007 – JAJAH Mobile Web (for smartphones) is available (my favorite Jajah solution)
• February 2007 - Dynamic Buttons Beta (customized click-to-call options)
• March 2007 – JAJAH named to “Pulver 100”
• March 2007 – Joyent, Gumiyo, call center integration
• March 2007 - Free 411/free Yellow pages
• March 27, 2007 - JAJAH turns one and serves 2 million users

If you want to know how these stories evolved, check out the Jajah Blog, most of these events are chronicled there and it makes an interesting progression of events - from there you can also check out the youtube and flickr presence. And stay tuned, the second year promises to be even bigger than the first and as we like to say around jajah:
" Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times".

Fun With Numbers

Today Alec Saunders  points us to Kevin Coughlin , where Kevin talks about the "cost of distraction". Listen to these numbers:

- 22.3 Trillion - the number of emails to be sent this year.

- 3 billion  - the number of instant messages to be relayed by AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft.

- 81.2 Million- the number of text messages to be sent to US cell phones.

Other numbers, along the same lines:

- 2.5 Billion - the number of mobile phone subscribers.

- 850 Million - the number of  mobile handsets sold/year

- $ 2.87 Trillion - Worldwide telecom revenue

Kevin's reports that Basex, a consulting firm, has quantified the cost of these "distractions".  Evidently it costs us $588 billion to be interrupted that much. Hummmm. I guess I don't get it. Yes, I get junk mail and yes, down time is pleasurable and wonderful and critical - but staying in immediate contact with friends, family and colleagues is the thread that brings context to it all. We are a social animal. (Someone once told me that the only reason we invented work was so we'd have an excuse to get together).  We are tribal by nature. We run in packs. To me, these numbers are a reflection of the coming together of a global pack, a large unified earth-sized tribe.

And now that I'm working globally- staying in contact with the greater team is so immediate and fluid - we couldn't do it without the virtual mind-meld. Distractions? I know what you mean, but it's not resonating with me now. I'm loving this stuff.

Identity 2.0

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with Dick Hardt  Founder and CEO of Sxip Identity . As many of you 2.0 aficionados already know, Dick is a thought leader in this new and soon to become very important space. Greatly simplified, Dicks company is tackling the problem of figuring out the good guys from the bad in the world of  email an web communities. Think of it as a credit rating for non-financial considerations. Dick introduces the topic in one of the better  presentations I've ever seen. Check it out.

We are just beginning to think about Identity 2.0. Many companies are now providing the tools and / or environments for people to be someone other than who they really are.  This might be done for privacy reasons or entertainment reasons but it might also be done with malicious intent.  If you are one of the companies creating anonymous meeting places - and you want those places to be safe and welcoming, you are going to need screening, confirmation, validation and reporting mechanisms. Dick's company is looking at how to do just that.

 

What Is Jajah?

There are two ways to talk about Jajah, Jajah today and Jajah tomorrow. Both versions are off the charts, in terms of their "cool factor".

Jajah today: Jajah is a simple, elegant 2.o app that lets you make "regular" phone calls, anywhere  on the planet - either for free or for very, little money, depending on where you are calling. What you do: you go to our website, enter your own phone number, enter the phone number of who you want to call, then press the "call" button.

After you hit "call" , your phone will ring, your friends phone will ring - you both answer and you talk. You've basically instructed our server to make two local calls - which is one of the reasons it's so cheap.

For you Skype Types out there - With Jajah, there is NO download, NO Software, NO Headsets, NO Hassle. With Jajah you are making a regular call, just dialing it from our 2.0 app.

To get up to speed fast about Jajah, check us out on YouTube (Newscasts and "How To's"). Very informative.

Jajah Tomorrow:  We are still playing around with the language, "Voice 2.0", "Hybrid Telephony" ? Here is what we know. The way you think about voice communication is about to dramatically change. Sounds crazy, but it's not. The telephone industry has a lot of good things to offer (phones work) but it's staged for big time disruption. Not unlike the music industry, it is very resistant to changing its behaviors - leaving it completely exposed to innovative start-ups (like us) who will bring high value , and very cool solutions to everyday consumers - at a fraction of the price, and in a fraction of the time.

Embedded Telephony - Today , most of us think in terms of  "pick up the phone, dial, talk". But Jajah sees a world where calls are not device or telephone centric. Already today, Jajah lets you make a regular phone call directly from within applications, like Outlook and Firefox - just click the number on the  browser page or in the address book, and Jajah connects your call. Often for free. No Kidding. This stuff actually works.

"OOOPS! I Did It Again".

Ooops. I did it again - took a real job, that is. This time it's Jajah - one of the coolest companies on the planet. As a result, I haven't found the time to blog since, wow, April 29th. Here's the short version:

I send Guy Kawasaki a note, telling him what I've learned about global branding via social networking. He sends me a note about Jajah - a company he's blogged about. I'm looking for a company that needs to go global fast and Jajah's looking for someone with a passion to do it.

A few interviews on Sand Hill Road with the founders and investors and I'm signed up as the VP of Global Marketing and on a plane to Vienna,  Austria (where Jajah was founded) to get to down to work.

Week One:  Go to work. Meet key players.
Week Two: Off To Europe and Israel (the engineering team is in Tel Aviv)
Week Three: Plan a Big Announcement (PR / Blogosphere)
Week Four: Announce "Free Global Calling" - U.S.
Week Five:  (4th of July) Announce Free Global Calling - Europe.
Week Six:  Begin to work on Infrastructure / Team / Planning.

Any one of those weeks above is a complete, lengthy blog entry. I'll try to get back to speed in following weeks.