This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
OPW -- July 7 -- I'm very happy to report that Userplane is not going to close in the foreseeable future now. Darin Ohlandt is the GM of Userplane and was able to attend the Internet Dating Conference / Social Networking Conference and officially announce that Userplane is not going to be 'retired' and everything is business as usual. I followed up with Darin with a few questions, and here's the official word.
- Is Userplane going to shut down?
No. Userplane is not going to close and services will continue to be provided.
- Can clients be assured that AOL will keep Userplane live and alive for at least the next year?
Yes. AOL fully supports the Userplane services and customers.
- Are there any 'classes' of clients (i.e. adult dating) that Userplane is no longer servicing?
Userplane remains committed to providing services to our customers, regardless of any ‘classes.'
- How many people work at Userplane now?
AOL does not disclose specific staffing levels. However, we can confirm that the staffing of the Userplane team was reduced in March as part of a general reorganization that affected all AOL divisions.
- How many of those are involved with client/customer service?
Userplane has a dedicated team for tier-one customer support, in addition to support from other Userplane groups including development, operations and business development. The staffing of the tier-one support team has been constant for well over a year. We have continued to provide customer support and have responded to our customer service and new customer integration requests, with no breaks in service, although response times can be affected by the depth of service queues.
- Are there any new product announcements coming up that you can let us know about?
We have no new product announcements at this time, but will certainly work with you when we have any new developments to announce.
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
TECH CRUNCH -- June 29 -- There has been no shortage of talk about the
apparent demise of Userplane, the text, voice and video chat software
provider that was acquired by AOL in August 2006 for around $40m. Darin
Ohlandt, General Manager of Userplane, responded to the rumors saying
they are definitely not shutting down. A recent thread on OnlinePersonalsWatch suggested that the site would be deadpooled by its
owner soon. A developer commented on the thread claiming he had tried
to contact Userplane for weeks through e-mails, voice calls and social
networks and received no response. Many startups with competing
solutions are taking advantage of the rumors about Userplane's
impending shut-down. Toksta is the most outspoken one, having set up a
special page for Userplane clients who are looking to switch to an
alternative provider. Other competitors include Meebo and ekkoTV. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST
Mark Brooks: I had two high trust sources that I've known for several years confirm that Userplane was to be retired. Not sold, just quietly retired. Userplane is having life breathed back into it. Good. It would be a shame to lose the company to the deadpool.
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
OPW -- May 4 -- Heads up! Rumors have come in from multiple sources that Userplane
is folding. Its too small for AOL to consider selling, and apparently
not worthwhile them continuing to run. Its a shame really. Companies
like Toksta and Ekko.tv stand to benefit from the void Userplane will
leave. Markus Frind says that IM was his biggest mistake.
He's getting far more pageviews now he's pulled it. But paid sites are
less interested in page views, so perhaps its still worthwhile paid
sites using IM. There are a number of IM alternatives we're reviewing.
We'll be presenting our findings at the upcoming Internet Dating Conference, and on the Courtland Brooks blog. (Full Disclosure: Plentyoffish.com is a current, long term client of Courtland Brooks. Userplane is a former client of Courtland Brooks)
See all posts on Userplane
See all posts on Plentyoffish
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch.
Social Networking Now Show #2 includes interviews with the CEO of Skout, Tsavo and Turnto Networks. Listen at WebmasterRadio.fm or Download Radio Show
OPW INTERVIEW -- Aug 30 -- Mike Jones is now an advisor to Userplane and AOL and is CEO of Tsavo. What is this mysterious Tsavo? Here's my interview with Mike. - Mark Brooks
What's your role at Tsavo and AOL now?
With AOL I function as a Strategic Advisor, facilitating the transition to Sam Wick for daily management of the Userplane business. The majority of my time operationally is setting up Tsavo and finalizing the transition with some of our initial, undisclosed acquisitions.
Tell us more about Tsavo.
Tsavo is focused on building technology facilitating highly-personal and relevant experiences with online content. I would like to see a world where, instead of browsing through 30,000 blog posts a day, there is a system that actively understands and learns my media consumption behavior.
What kind of media are you particularly going to be looking at and serving up to users?
Our current focus is on a wide-reaching publishing network with niche vertical focus. Overall we are viewing it from the standpoint that Tsavo will be a multi URL network across a whole series of verticals.
Is there an official launch date?
No there’s not. Since we’re starting off with a few acquisitions, we have active staff and revenue today; my CTO Nate Thelen and his lead engineer Gabe Harriman and our head of product Mike Macaadan focus primarily on building the relevancy sub-structure. You will begin seeing our acquisition announcements in the next few months, and the relevancy technology begin surfacing in the next six months and beyond.
What kinds of sites and services are you looking to acquire at this stage?
We’re looking for content sites that have strong editorial and original content. We’re looking for a few back-end technologies that relate the semantic web and content aggregation.
Are dating sites within your realm of interest?
Probably not. I don’t believe it will fit initially with our focus on media & relevance. I do have interest and am researching other types of subscription services.
OPW INTERVIEW -- Mar 15 -- Userplane has been busy. I interviewed Mike Jones, the CEO, to see what they've been working on since our last interview. - Mark Brooks
Why would a social network or Internet dating site choose Userplane IM over third-party software?
Userplane’s value as a publisher-oriented solution set hasn't changed. The technologies we’re developing and implementing are fairly complicated to build and tricky to maintain. With chat or IM, you have huge volumes, active and live server- intensive traffic that requires many resources. Even if open source or packaged solutions can be found, they can’t compare to the value of what Userplane IM has to offer.
The main benefit of using Userplane IM compared to developing/maintaining systems internally is that we can’t be beat on a pure cost analysis basis. If you post a large chat infrastructure internally, the labor cost alone will be much larger than Userplane’s costs. Publishers use us for expanded functionality, increased engagement, and large sources of revenue. They use a free product with ads, and substantial amounts are registering those advertisements back to themjb.
Can you tweak the look and feel of your IM application?
You can’t re-layout our buttons, but everything from language settings to graphics on the user interface, chat and IM are scannable. Our new mini-chat is a lighter application, with a smaller input and output window. It allows a simpler implementation of technology that’s still brandable.
Who would use Mini-chat instead of the full Userplane IM version?
Mini-chat is a complement or alternative to the Userplane Webchat. Users can drive more activity by copying and placing a version of the chat room anywhere on their site. Mini-chat can be built in a very small footprint, so users can easily place it on their social networking pages. Many sites use Mini-chat as an entry tool, allowing access to our full chat functionalities only when the user becomes a member. Mini-chat encourages users to test their sites/technology, and then they’re up-sold into full memberships.
What kind of money are Userplane partners earning at this stage?
Some partners are making substantial revenue, earning well above tens of thousands a month. Smaller webmasters are creating dedicated sites, driving traffic to the sites, which drive up the Userplane revenue as well.
Interesting. Any sites you could recommend looking at?
We’re now working with media savvy publishers like CBS and MTV, but as far as those who are doing smaller blogs and creating dedicated chat-oriented sites, it would be hard to single out one above the others. There’s a lot of outstanding work going on.
How is the Desktop app coming along?
We launched our first Desktop application (built in C++) last year, and recently re-released an upgraded Desktop as an Adobe Air application. This has enabled us to have a full multi-platform version (Mac and PC), easier download and upgrade process, advanced scanning capabilities and functionalities that enable large website pieces to be truly integrated onto a desktop.
Clients who use the C++ version got minor traction. From a positive perspective, clients seeing a 30 percent download–to-install rate were driving additional traffic from those users to return to the website while increasing overall website activityjb.
The Adobe Air Desktop version will be a solid competitive advantage to sites that truly embrace it because it’s easier to install, is Mac/PC friendly and has expanded functionality. You’ll see our marketing and sales efforts driven around Desktop for the next six months.
Is the social networking industry starting to peak?
I pay attention to numbers. Facebook is still growing, just not as quickly as the last few months. Across our entire network, I’m seeing growth from many big partners, along with new social networking clients who see expansive growth through our platform. We may see some fragmentation with those primarily using MySpace, Facebook and Friendster – users who want to complement their experiences with more niche-oriented sites. We’ll also see some fragmentation in traffic, but not a decline in the amount of social networking activity.
I don’t have specific metrics, but one in every “x” Americans visit a social networking site daily, unlike three years ago. The big deal is that when people open their browsers now they have more options. Five or ten years ago, they went to a portal news page and email account. Now, they’re going to their social networking site, email account, and portal news page or personal aggregator like Netvibes. Consumer behavior has changed quickly, insofar as where users spend their Internet time. Time spent online is not declining, and I don’t see another category rising to offset that behavior.
Are there any products in the works or new product features that you can leak to me?
Yes. Desktop was our big release, but we’re also putting out a Board product with a skinnable, Flex-based, bulletin boards application, with full SEO. That will be followed by a gifting product that will facilitate user-to-user gifts. In addition, we also released a media player product that enables users to upload customized videos and playbacks, with full chat built in and a revenue sharing option back to the publisher. We’ll host and maintain all video streaming, a big advantage to publishers. Finally, we’re releasing full AIM interoperability in our IM suite.
Currently, Userplane has substantial reach within the ad network space. We’re a social ad network that represents ad inventory for quite a few large and small publishers considered online dating social networking sites. We haven’t formally put out a big push to find more publishers or market ourselves as a social networking advertising platform, but our volume is substantial. In fact, we’re within the top few networks dedicated to reaching social media websites. In the next few months, many of our publisher-oriented services will begin to include monetization around social networking inventory, and we’ll actually make a formal claim in the market there.
PRESS RELEASE -- Oct 17 -- AOL-owned Userplane today unveiled Userplane Feeds, a collection of free APIs that add content and function to websites. Each Feed is a free, ad-supported solution that can be integrated with Userplane Money to generate revenue for the site. The first Featured Feed is AOL’s Truveo Video Search, with MapQuest and Relegence Feeds coming soon. FULL ARTICLE @ AD HOC NEWS
ONLINE DATING INSIDER -- July 24 -- Userplane Money launched, a new rev-share platform. When your visitors use Webmessenger and Webchat, you can now earn revenue from the ad views they generate. The more ads displayed, the more money you make. It's that simple. There are no fees to participate, and monthly payments are issued via PayPal. FULL ARTICLE @ ONLINE DATING INSIDER
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch and FrequentFlirters.
BUSINESS WIRE -- June 20 -- Userplane Money is now available to anyone developing applications for Facebook. The move enables developers to earn money with the widgets they make available to users of Facebook. Userplane offers customizable communication tools, such as live IM and chat, that can be added to any site for free, simply by cutting and pasting a few lines of HTML code. Userplane serves unobtrusive ads in its players, and splits the proceeds with participating publishers. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE
This post also appears on FrequentFlirters.
OPW INTERVIEW -- June 2, 2007 -- Michael Jones is CEO of Userplane and VP at AOL. AOL acquired Userplane last August. Userplane offers instant messaging and chat tool with text, voice and video capability, for online communities. A web recorder for users to record voice and video, a site search tool, and a Desktop user presence tool. Userplane has come a long way, and it’s tools are now best in class, reliable and scalable. - Mark Brooks
What are Userplane’s biggest clients to date?
Well looking at network usage overall, we have a few top tenors, PlentyofFish being one. MySpace uses a tremendous volume of our products, Spark Networks uses a tremendous amount, and Date.com. Currently our client base ranges from major brand names down to small, completely unknown websites. There’s around 1,500 clients in our integrated portfolio.
Did you have to customize the Userplane service for many of your clients?
No, they typically use the API driven application as it stands. When clients have specific needs we slate their requests for development for a future release and then we work with them on those timelines. For instance, we’re doing some large media partnerships with companies like NBC that have some specific needs. But in general, everybody works off the same API driven version, which makes it very scalable and very safe for everybody. We have a centralized hosting center that hosts all of our applications in basically the same cluster. So if NBC is using it or MySpace is using it they’re all pulling from the same network.
What improvements have you made to improve scalability?
We upgraded our network substantially and added a substantial amount of redundancy in the standard application service. We’re now working on opening up a point of presence internationally to diversify some of our bandwidth. We architected quite a bit of our system to be able to deal with large volumes of overflow or unexpected traffic bursts, as MySpace is growing. We implemented a better system to balance out the volume. So if a client starts with us on a 10 connection package and then they suddenly bump up and they’re hitting 5,000 or 10,000 connections we can actually handle that unexpected jump. At this point, we can handle MySpace size traffic and AOL size traffic.
Why are you offering an ad-supported version?
We’re using what we love to term as the “freemium model.” We have premium services, which are not ad-supported, but then we also have free services that are ad-supported. We had so many clients move over to ad-based websites, they were expecting large volumes of traffic growth and they didn’t want to have cost associated with our services. Even a large Userplane client on a premium model may only be paying us $10,000 or $20,000 a month, if they are extremely large. Our hope is to be able to open up a revenue sharing system back to all of our clients and become a key portion of their revenue. That’s what we’ve really been working towards.
What sort of CPM’s rates are you charging for advertising on Userplane products?
Anywhere between a dollar, up to tens of dollars for video ad units. It depends. We have in-house ad sales here that handle a lot of requests and we also work with AOL media groups that take care of monetizing some of our traffic as well.
Can a site customize the kind of ads that will appear on their Userplane services?
Yes. It’s customized automatically through preferences you select in the set up process for the instant install services. If you don’t like particular ads showing, you can email us the ad ID’s you want pulled, or if you want a specific type of category shown you can notify us and we can make sure we’re only showing that category.
What new products and developments do you have in the works Mike?
We just rolled out our integrated user list, which is a new type of buddy list for our integrated clients. That’s pretty exciting. It’s a fun list that shows when your friends are online, or the people you’re interested in are online. The sites that have started playing with it now are seeing substantially longer engagement times for their users, and a better frequency of communication between their users.
We are also pushing out a new version of our desktop application called Userplane Desktop. Originally we saw the desktop application as being a component of IM to allow people to generate IM’s down to the user’s desktop. That’s definitely one feature of it, but we found that the clients that were deploying it most successfully and were getting the most usage out of it were actually using it primarily for alerts to say you have a new email to view, somebody has marked you as a friend, somebody is interested in meeting you, and driving traffic back to their website. This is actually the first product that we’ve ever had that has really driven external traffic back to the website. Most of our products are about increasing user engagement once you’re at the website. So we think this is actually going to be a pretty fundamental shift for us and also really improve our client’s traffic patterns.
Clients so far that have used it have had impressive adoption rates. Its definitely at a point that a lot of the fears that our clients had about users downloading an application are being shown as unfounded. If users love your community they probably will download a desktop application, install it, and be pleased if you tell them, “Hey there’s this activity and you should jump in right now and find your friend” or “You should jump in right now to respond to this message.” I think that’s being welcomed.
BUSINESS WIRE -- May 31 -- Userplane, the premier communication platform for online communities, today launched Userplane Money, a new revenue-sharing program for publishers. The Userplane™ platform serves ads in instant messaging, web chat and other widgets that more than 155,000 online communities, including MySpace, deploy. Marcien Jenckes, SVP, AOL, said, "Userplane is leading AOL's charge with feature-rich applications that increase user engagement. Paying publishers to use tools that many would gladly pay for is the icing on the cake." Michael Jones, CEO of Userplane and VP, AOL, said, "Over the last two years, just by offering Userplane tools for free, we've experienced and sustained phenomenal growth of about 5,000 new communities per week," Any Userplane-powered website using its Instant-Install community platform can sign up for Userplane Money merely by agreeing to the terms of service. Once a $25 minimum is met, publishers can request and receive their revenue share via PayPal. Userplane tools enable millions of daily users in more than 30 countries to communicate. AOL acquired Userplane last August. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE
PRESS RELEASE -- May 15 -- Userplane released Webmessenger 2, a major enhancement to the world's most widely used Web-based instant messaging platform. The new offering integrates IM, user presence and buddy list, giving online communities three products in one. Members of participating online communities can now display when they are online, easily manage buddies, find other online users and launch IMs. "Online communities turn to Userplane Webmessenger to build that real sense of belonging," said Michael Jones, Userplane’s CEO and VP of AOL. "The cost for all the new functionality still starts at free." Enhancements include:
More than 150,000 social networking communities, media entertainment properties and niche communities deploy Userplane Webmessenger, enabling millions of daily users in more than 30 countries to communicate. Userplane offers free, ad-supported Userplane Webmessenger 2 packages and is planning to launch an advertising revenue-sharing program in the next 60 days.
Mark Brooks: I had lunch with the CEO of World Friends Networks today. They also use Userplane, along with PlentyofFish, MySpace and a virtual who’s who of internet dating and social networking.
PRESS RELEASE -- May 8 -- Fotolog™, the world’s largest photo-blogging community and third most-trafficked social media network, and Userplane, the premier communication platform for online communities, today announced that Fotolog will integrate the full set of Userplane’s Web communications and advertising tools. More than 150,000 online communities, from MySpace to the tiniest niche sites, deploy Userplane’s Web-based communication tools. The appeal of free, private-label chat, IM, interactive games and voice/video streaming attracts 5,000 new communities per week. Userplane serves 1 billion ads per month and is rolling out an advertising revenue-sharing program later this quarter.
Mark Brooks: Userplane is a subsidiary of AOL. Larger sites can reach business development manager Ian Swanson directly at (310) 442-5145.
BUSINESS WIRE -- May 7 -- Fotolog photo-blogging community, and AOL's Userplane, a Web communications pioneer, announced that Fotolog will integrate the full set of Userplane's Web communications (chat, instant messaging and video messaging) and advertising tool. The two companies will share advertising revenues generated by the use of these products, monetizing Fotolog's member base of seven million. More than 150,000 online communities, from MySpace to the tiniest niche sites, deploy Userplane's Web-based communication tools; free, private-label chat, IM, interactive games and voice/video streaming. Userplane serves 1 billion ads per month and is planning to roll out an advertising revenue-sharing program later this quarter. FULL ARTICLE @ BROADCAST NEWSROOM
This post also appears on SocialNetworkingWatch
PRESS RELEASE -- Apr 12 -- The 3rd annual Far East Internet Dating Conference and Social Networking Conference will be held on May 17-18, 2007 in Shanghai at the Four Points Sheraton Shanghai Hotel and will focus on management, technology and marketing in China. Speakers at this event include executives from: Baihe, 51Friend.net, Match.com, ModMySite, Userplane, YeeYoo, 99Bill, InterCanel, Hungry for Words, Loci China, YeePay, Dragon Lady Consulting and Social Networking Watch & Online Personals Watch. Topics include: the social networking market in China, the online personals market in the Far East, wireless carriers and business models for Chinese mobile social networking, business development in China and marketing for social networking and online dating services in Japan.
MEDIA POST -- Mar 7 -- Dwight Evans, a Democratic candidate for Philadelphia mayor, is deploying Userplane Webchat to conduct weekly live video chats. The Pennsylvania State Representative is the first candidate in a high-profile local race to connect with voters in this way.
Mark Brooks: This is very forward thinking of Mr Evans.
OPW -- Feb 21 -- On Saturday 10th February I attended Community Next in Silicon Valley, CA. Here are a few keypoints I picked up from the day of speakers which included the founders of Dogster, Hi5, Mychurch, PlentyofFish, HotorNot, and Userplane. - Mark Brooks
People will gather online around 'social objects' i.e. pictures (Flickr), bookmarks (Delicious), friends (Friendster).
Loopt offers location based services on phones. Mark suggested that the mobile platform is more appealing than the PC because it's 'Always Available.'
Threadless makes $15 million a year from community designed tshirt sales. One of the secrets of their success is they listen to members and make changes quickly. Side projects include ExtraTasty, NakedandAngry and IParkLikeAnIdiot. Start your site with minimal rules and then add rules to the community later on. Be evolutionary. Make frequent small incremental changes.
The Dogster Founders recommended choosing appropriate advertisers and building campaigns around them that truly engage users. Don't be deceptive, ever! Write your advertisers copy. Offer something special to users.
Currently MyChurch has 2700 church groups signed up. There are more churches than schools in the U.S.A. (300k) and Americans donate $88 billion a year in tithings. There are 88k Christian groups on Y! groups, and 82k on MySpace.
Danah Boyd was not a speaker but was quoted as follows... "Community is a garden, tend it well."
From the final panel:
The Suicide Girls name was inspired by a book written by the author of Fight Club. Presently, their fastest growing revenue generator is from merchandising.
PlentyofFish contrasted executive opinion on the final panel on two points. Markus believes that advertising is actually very important in building an online community. Other speakers (HororNot, Fark, Hi5, Slide, Suicide Girls) did not. Markus stated that 'passion' is not as important as 'cold hard analytics skills.' Other speakers believed that passion for the site was their primary success factor.
James Hong of HotorNot suggested that being an entrepreneur was like volunteering to be bipolar.
Fark was started when Drew Curtis put up a photo for 18 months of a squirrel with big nuts. Fark nearly ended up as a curry recipe site, but Drew decided to focus it on to focus on listing 'things you're ashamed you laughed at.' He's still the sole employee and maxim sells advertising for the site now.
Slide has 50 employees and is not profitable yet. It's founded by Paypal co-founder Max Levchin.
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