Shapiro: Cool Versus Money For Social Networking Sites PalTalk, Facebook, Skype, YouTube

By Judy Shapiro
United States News Agency

New York --- February 18, 2009...... I find myself in an usual business at a very unusual time.

After spending years working with technology leaders in telecommunications, software and security, I wanted to explore the expanding role of social networks in our everyday online worlds. So I went looking for opportunities in this new “cool” space. Not so easy given my decidedly lack of “coolness” (I haven’t seen “20 something” in a few decades). Yet nonetheless, in a sheer stroke of great luck and timing, I recently landed at Paltalk — the leader in social networking, about 4 months ago.

I settled in to learn about this space. I wanted to understand how can our networks provide us with the kind of verified information that our real world networks provide us all the time? How do we integrate the collective power of the Twitter, Facebook and YouTube applications into our everyday online activities? What’s the best way to stay transparent in our social networks, yet remain safe to prying digital eyes?

As all these new concepts were rolling around in my head in those first early weeks at Paltalk, the economic floor began to give way and everything changed. Day after day the bad news was rolling in – first the financial sector, then the business sector. The speed of the financial decline is breathtaking. And the awful ride is not over yet.

But business at Paltalk is good. In fact, just today, Jonathan Blum wrote an article entitled; A surprising winner in the downturn: consumer video conferencing, and Paltalk is the primary beneficiary of this trend. In fact, we seem to be the only highly profitable and financially healthy company in the social networking space.

Why you ask? I’ll share our secret – but be warned – it is a radical idea.

Our secret is that we spent 10 long hard years developing serious technology to deliver a well designed rich media, interactive real time communications platform. And then we did not just give it all away for free (though some of our best features like SuperIM are totally free). We reserved our highest quality video and audio technology for subscribers and subscriptions makes up the vast majority of our revenue. Unlike our competitors, we did not build a business model around ad revenue that, in hindsight, never materialized. Nope, we banked on people willing to pay for great quality. Gee – what a concept.

And now as I see an eerie déjà vu of tech bust of 2001 (only bigger), I wonder why we did we not learn our lesson? What’s the point of a just cool company like Twitter with no real business model beyond a vague allusion to some monetization strategy in the future.

The point is that “Cool” has no currency – I don’t care what the cool bloggers and reporters and VC’s think. Making money is cool today.

That’s the point!

Judy Shapiro
Senior Vice President of PalTalk

PalTalk recently announced the beta launch of PaltalkExpress, a flash-enabled version of its video chat platform.

This social networking Web 2.0 product offers new features and functionalities including compatibility with Mac platforms, enabling Mac users to experience Paltalk's interactive, real-time video chat community for the first time.

Additional features include: easy to use - users can access PaltalkExpress from any computer, anywhere, simply and conveniently, no downloads - the new flash client eliminates the need to download a specific application.

Today's launch of the beta version of PaltalkExpress is the first in what has been a series of announcements aimed at augmenting the socialcasting experience for Paltalk users and expanding Paltalk's platform in the coming weeks and months. PalTalk began the socialcasting movement by combining traditional media content, social networking, and an interactive video community all onto its platform.

Paltalk is the premier provider of software and technology for real-time, rich media, interactive social networking. PalTalk's platform powers the largest collection of video based communities and continues to grow since it was launched in 1998. Paltalk now boasts millions of active members from New York, London and Paris to Chicago, Tel Aviv and Tokyo with nearly 100,000 people simultaneously chatting in Web 2.0 rooms engaged in lively dialogues, meeting new friends, breaking news, trading stock tips, politics, dating, sports, business, singing karaoke, and attending family and school reunions. The Paltalk community is vibrant due to the high quality of the digital room environments supported by a range of free moderation tools.

In addition, Paltalk delivers original programming geared to the interests of the community. Paltalk Interactive events have hosted entertainment personalities including William Shatner and radio personalities Opie and Anthony. Paltalk supports both IM pals on AOL, Yahoo, and ICQ and is available as a free download.

 

Judy Shapiro serves as the Senior Vice President of Marketing at PalTalk.com. Shapiro, who brings deep marketing and sales experience, including spending the last three years as the VP of Corporate Marketing for Comodo, an Internet security company, has been responsible for PalTalk's creative branding and increasing market share at this leading Web 2.0 social networking organization. Prior to her tenure with Comodo, Shapiro held senior-level marketing positions with Computer Associates, Lucent Technologies and AT&T, where she was tasked with managing customer acquisition, retention and upsell efforts, among other responsibilities.

 

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