Some say Goowy.com, which falls into the Web 2.0 bucket, competes with Microsoft’s Live.com. But because of the services’ functionality it likely will step on many companies’ toes. Goowy investor Mark Cuban, a billionaire Internet entrepreneur, told Fox News recently that he wouldn’t be shocked if Goowy toppled Google within a matter of months.
Goowy is a virtual desktop that lets users upload, store and share all types of digital data, as well communicate via e-mail and instant messaging. It has the typical features you’d expect from these types of applications, such as calendar and contact lists within e-mail. One of Goowy’s goal is to make the site feel familiar.
But unlike a traditional PC desktop, Goowy is online, which means it can be accessed from any machine with any type of browser and can run on Windows, Mac OS or Linux. In essence, Goowy becomes a portable, private PC.
The goal is not necessarily to replace desktop machine, but to augment it, said Goowy’s chief executive Alex Bard. You’ll always have applications running on your desktop, but your personal digital online identity, where you can interact with friends or family no matter where you are, would be Goowy.
A couple of weeks ago, Goowy added instant messaging and file storage as a limited private alpha release. These features will be released to its public beta during the next few weeks.
By July, Goowy will launch its first publicity blitz, albeit viral in nature, to attract more members. Mostly, the marketing will be online advertising and sponsorship deals, Bard reckons.
Advertising within the client likely will be the first way Goowy will generate revenue. There also will be subscription fees for premium services.
All Goowy users will get up to 1GB of free online storage, as well as basic e-mail with up to 2GB of storage, and other fundamentals. The company soon plans to charge between $3 and $5 per month for additional storage up to 5GB.
Other premium services will include opting out of advertising and the Goowy tagline in outgoing e-mail, as well as forwarding and pop, multiple pop accounts, increased e-mail storage, SMS notifications and premium support.
Early adopters may have flocked to Goowy in part for its user-friendly design, which Bard said was inspired in part by the elegance of Apple Computer Inc products.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, he said. We’re building an experience that’s very desktop-like that’s on the Web that gives you an emotional connection to interacting with your family and friends.
Goowy also has a built-in transactional revenue model. The site has several small embedded applications, which can be tailored to suit users, called minis that provide real-time information to potential transactional sites.
For example, a user can watch bids on eBay or see the top songs on iTunes. They can then click to buy the eBay listed product or iTunes song directly from Goowy — and Goowy gets a piece of it.
While the percentage that a click-through site earns from these transactions is miniscule, with enough critical mass it could be quite profitable, Bard said.
Millions of active users is our goal and that’s when these revenue streams really start creating a viable business model, he said.
While Goowy’s initial target is the consumer market, the site has roused enterprise interest. Small and mid-sized companies, or those with a large virtual workforce, could use Goowy and do away with purchasing expensive desktop applications, Bard said. We would be a great platform for companies looking for a really lightweight computer.
Some large US and European telecommunication companies have approached Goowy to potentially license and re-brand the platform for their own customers. Discussions are ongoing, Bard said. That’s a large opportunity for us for either licensing or revenue share, he said.
Goowy also plans to make money from sponsorship tie-ins with, say, the latest Hollywood movie or consumer product. Within Goowy, there could be Flash video teasers for a product, for example.
This type of non-traditional advertising is part of the beauty and business model for some Web 2.0 services.
The term Web 2.0 is mostly a fuzzy buzzword for internet sites that have snazzy technologies not found on more traditional web builds. The use of Ajax, in particular, is often a defining Web 2.0 characteristic.
Ajax, or asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a way to create web applications so that when data on the site changes the entire page does not have to be reloaded. It works when small amounts of data, rather than the full page, are exchanged with the server. The upshot is speedier data changes and better interactivity and usability.
Web 2.0 also means openness, Bard said, and exposing information through RSS and integrating with other companies inside a site. Among applications Goowy integrates with are Flickr and Del.icio.us. We don’t want to lock our members out of using other applications out there, he said.
Today, most Goowy users are aged between 13 and 32, with roughly 70% in the US and about 20% in Europe. Ultimately, we want to target all user demographics, Bard said.
Goowy will spend its venture funding on adding more workers to its development and infrastructure team, which currently stands at fewer than 10 people. Specifically, it’s looking for Web 2.0 engineers, which currently are in short supply, Bard said.
The company also plans to add some staff in Europe. And some of the funding will also go toward publicity.
The San Diego-based company, which launched in mid-2004, uses a hosted service for its databases and storage. Currently, it does not have a so-called hot backup system at another facility, in case of a disaster or total power outage, but plans to within the next six months, Bard said.
This second infrastructure likely will be located on the US East Coast or in Europe, he said. The latter would be particularly advantageous from a performance point of view, given Goowy’s following in Europe.
Today, Goowy backs up all its data and information off-site, so it could rebuild in the event of a meltdown, Bard said.
What will determine Goowy’s fate is whether or not it can attain mass distribution.
Bard said the experience of the company’s four founders, all under the age of 40, would go a long way. Together, they previously helped found two other dot com outfits, including online bulletin board company eShare, which was sold for $70m to a public company that took on the eShare name. The second was CRM provider eAssist, which, after a $30m run rate in its first year, fizzled into solvency as the Internet bubble deflated.
Bard said Goowy’s exit strategy could be either to build Goowy as a public company or be acquired by a larger business.
When we started the company, we made a conscious decision early on not to pursue revenue, but to pursue user adoption and feedback, Bard said. The hardest thing is not to create revenue. The hardest thing is to create awareness and build a product that people want to use in their daily lives.
