Zoopy.com is in the news following Vodacom's acquisition of 40% of the company's shareholding. A proudly South African social media site, Zoopy.com community users can upload and share videos on the site, together with photos, podcasts and blogs via any Internet connection on personal computer or mobile phone.
With a new partner that has 24.8 million subscribers in South Africa, Zoopy.com should soon zip into the local Internet hall of fame. More so given Vodacom's strong focus on social media, with the recent announcement that Vincent Maher, the brain behind many of Mail & Guardian's online breakthroughs, will bode well for Zoopy.com's future success.
Why did you start Zoopy?
We started Zoopy after years of background in various forms of online marketing. We wanted to take our ideas on how to improve other sites and consolidate them into a site that brought videos, photos, podcasts (audio) and blogs (text) together into one easy-to-use platform. And, at the same, create a living archive for South African and African multimedia, across events and places that are important to the citizens of this continent. As we move forward, with more and more users from around the world, this will naturally extend globally.
Who are your partners or funders or stakeholders?
I co-founded the company with Gerry Da Silva and Pat Elk, both of whom had valuable online experience to contribute. Vodacom has recently invested in Zoopy for a 40% stake in the company.
Who funded you at start up?
Like any good entrepreneur with the scars to show for it, we were self-funded until bringing Vodacom on board. Painful but valuable. First, it makes you work even harder. Second, you learn the value of every cent and how to spend it as smartly as possible. It makes the transition to investment much easier because you already have the financial systems in place for reporting back to the board and, more importantly, you already have the internal bean counter there to help keep blue-sky ambitions in achievable chunks.
What have you learned along the way?
From a technical perspective, we've learnt loads. We've just completed a server migration to our third host, as we continue to scale our back-end for growth. Our videos are processed using best-of-breed technologies to optimise file size and quality. Our code base is getting stronger, smarter and more streamlined by the day. We continue to optimise all the time and the decisions we're making could only come after experiencing and resolving issues along the way.
From a business perspective, I've learnt the value of a permanent working team! We've recently started staffing up, but before this point, the three founders had to switch between multiple personalities: a phone call could come in for sales or accounting or an interview. Any one of us had to catch balls of all shapes and sizes, coming at us from all angles. That in itself was a good learning curve but it would've been impossible to keep up.
From a personal perspective, this has easily been one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of my life. We've worked harder than ever, dreamed bigger than ever and achieved more than we thought possible.
Your toughest challenge?
Believing in yourself is one thing. But along the way you'll meet loads of people who don't. To see it through no matter what takes courage or stupidity, or a good mix of both.
What's your view on social marketing? How is social media monetised?
Monetisation around social media has already advanced quite dramatically. New technologies include pre and post-roll podcast and video ads, user interaction with layers on top of video players and various forms of brand engagement. Banners still have their place, but brands need to come to the party. They need to interact with their users in an entertaining way that lives up to the Web 2.0 culture of user-generated content and participation.
What is the business case for Zoopy.com?
We generate revenue from advertisers, who interact with our users in all kinds of ways, including branded landing pages that merge Zoopy architecture with branded look and feel and competitions.
What's the juncture of mobile and social marketing?
It's impossible to separate mobile and social marketing, though both are really at different stages of development. From a South African perspective, the social media industry (including social networking) has grown off a strong PC-connected base, with users at work responsible for a large amount of Facebook's recent rise in popularity in this country. Mobile access has been a long time coming, but will need improvements in functionality (Vodacom's new Mobile Internet service is a good example) to get the majority of users to switch to mobile as a viable replacement for PC-based operations. That said, you can't dispute the sheer reach that mobile achieves in SA. Over time, and with faster connections and better handsets and software, mobile and Internet connections will be a matter of convenience. Internet when you're at your desk, mobile when you're on the go - without suffering from a lack of features or achievability.
What does vlogging mean to traditional broadcasters like eTV and the SABC?
Video as a communication platform is dominating the online social media space. Traditional broadcasters in South Africa like eTV and SABC need to catch up quickly with the likes of CNN (and their iReport citizen journalism service) to remain relevant over the long-term.
How many members do you have?
We have 3 000 registered members. These numbers have been off the back of low-scale marketing and simply relied on word-of-mouth and content sharing. They also don^1t include the number of views of Zoopy content embedded on user sites.
How did the deal with Vodacom come about?
We re-launched our new-look site in December last year, just before announcing that Nokia had selected us as their regional imaging partner for South and West Africa. Soon after, we realised we would need to secure investment to properly roll out our full strategy, and as things worked out, Vodacom contacted us to discuss a possible partnership. Of course we were delighted at the prospect and began negotiations in earnest. The next few months were filled with paperwork and now it's onto making the future happen according to plan.
What have you learnt during the deal-making process?
Some big businesses are smarter, more approachable and more collaborative than they appear from a distance. But paperwork is still 90% of any transaction.
We've worked harder than ever, dreamed bigger than ever and achieved more than we thought possible.
Jason Elk, CEO, Zoopy.com
What does the deal with Vodacom mean for Zoopy?
Vodacom's investment will give us the resources we need to be able to bring our users more exciting, useful and innovative additions to Zoopy features and functionality. Some users have been asking if this means we're now a part of Vodacom. Yes we are, but they're also a part of us. We're partnering to bring users an even more enjoyable online and mobile experience at Zoopy, but beyond that, Zoopy still runs Zoopy. We're not moving offices and we're not being absorbed. The bottom line is that by combining our mobile and online strengths, the future is brighter than ever for our community. New technologies, new frontiers and endless possibilities to do so much more.
Where to from now?
We're staffing up and getting to work on our strategy. The good news is out there, but now it's down to hard work to get Zoopy to the level of functionality our users want, and the level of revenue we've targeted.
Youtube or Zoopy - what's the difference between the two?
Zoopy is not a video-sharing site alone. It's a social media community that allows users to upload and share videos, photos, podcasts and blogs - made up of South African content and content that interests South Africans. Our sponsors are also local, giving our users the opportunity to interact with brands they know and win competitions that are relevant and achievable.
Why are local social media offerings proving so popular?
South Africans are always willing to support a local enterprise. But they're also technologically advanced and won't sacrifice functionality or usability simply for the local benefit. So the old advice to 'think global, act local' applies here as much as it does anywhere else.
But I think that the biggest draw-card in local social media offerings is that the content is relevant and topical. You can see that some of our top-viewed items are purely South African. The Vernon Koekemoer ads or Bryan Habana video are unique to us and our culture.
Jason Elk thinks, uses, loves...
Vblogging is waiting to explode with mobile development.
My favourite device is my iMac.
The first five tabs I open in the morning are Zoopy.com; Zoopy Google Analytics stats; Twitter; Mashable; and Techcrunch.
Twitter is IRC 2.0
I would invest in Africa.
Mobile means me. Everywhere.
The next big thing is the personalised Web.
The biggest trend in social media is you.
I love the first discovery.
I hate no one.
The best advice anyone ever gave me is rather aim high and miss than aim low and hit.
When I play I kick butt at ten-pin bowling, Wii tennis and Commodore 64 games.
* A former broadcast journalist, Mandy de Waal spent 20 years in branding marketing before returning to her first love, journalism. Read Artificial Intelligence, her blog, on new media, current affairs and business at: http://mdw.typepad.com/
Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mandyldewaal.
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