About a month ago, Shozu announced that their formerly free iPhone application would have a price hike. Intrigued, I plunked down the $4.99 needed to buy it, and gave it a whirl. It works well, allowing you to shoot photos or video, and upload them for sharing, immediately, to over 51 destinations. Moreover, it builds in a replication mechanism. For example, you can upload to Flickr, and it will automatically replicate the content on Facebook. Efficient on bandwidth, time, and your wallet! Shozu even functions as a kind of micro social media application, allowing comments to come back from your friends.
So I jumped at the opportunity to chat with Shozu Chairman and CEO Chris Wade. A serial entrepreneur Wade joined Shozu as Chairman toward the end of last year, and became CEO about 30 days ago.
Wade has made it a focus to find new ways to make money from Shozu. Historically, they’ve made money by licensing to handset manufacturers, a model he feels won’t scale well due to the small number of manufacturers. They’ve also tried ad models, which he feels are immature.
With the introduction of their $4.99 price point on June 4th, the company shifted its focus from the handset manufacturer to the end user. Wade likes the app store because not only can you make money, but it’s also an instant source of feedback on the product. Plus, he says that charging for the application “ensures the survivability of Shozu”, and that they will continue to update it. In this environment, he doesn’t believe that the model of funding via VC’s is viable any more. Focusing on the end user means that they have to “worry about customer support, and worry about the evolution of the product”, rather than the next funding round.
Wade also provided some interesting insight into who we share with and how. Shozu users can upload to 51 destinations on the web, but the average is just 3.5. And the #1 destination? Not Flickr, not Facebook, not MySpace…. but email. Sharing with the world is eclipsed by simply sharing with friends and family.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I'm not surprised about email & friends and family being the top sharing destination.
It seems to me that social networks reinforce weak ties while (and this is a generalization) email, IM and phone focus on building/reinforcing strong ties.
For most people video/photo's are still documents of relatively private moments.
BTW – Do you think conference calling is another tool to build reinforce weak ties.
I used to think that Peter, but primarily conference calls (IMO) are about virtual conversations and mostly in a business context.