Wireless Ventures (20 more minutes of fame)

We had 10 minutes of fame at a previous Dow Jones Venture One Summit as I pointed out a few weeks ago. Since we hadn't launched the company to the public yet, I had to sing and dance, especially when their projector didn't recognize my mac. I guess it went 'good enough' though, since they asked us to speak at their Wireless Ventures event. (This time I made damn sure that the projector worked in advance). Since we still haven't publicly launched, I still had to sing and dance...only this time was able to say more since we're getting closer. That was cancelled out by the fact that there were 20 minutes of talk time though...

Anyway, getting to the point... It seemed as though there were lots of companies that had apps that would a) require a presence on the mobile carrier deck, b) require support for the various mobile devices c) require a huge split on the take due to premium SMS based billing and d) if they were ad supported, they were putting the ads on a mobile web app only. A & B could starve a start up, C could make it a painful haul, and D is simply painful for the consumer. On D...I suppose all this gets better as data rates on phones improve, but man, I've got a Treo and STILL can't deal with the web interface.

It seemed as though we were one of the only (if not the only) that have taken a step back from all these issues, and decided to provide a service that is agnostic to the carrier, the device (and the access medium actually). Since we're working at the common denomenator and keeping the junk behind the scenes, it will hopefully make for a more compelling consumer experience and more optimal delivery experience. I thank our lucky stars for this fundamental level of differentiation.

To this end, there was a VC paneled wrap up session in the end. Each of these VCs took the stage and had been assigned a particular track to pay attention to throughout the day. So in this session they would compare and contrast the presenting company strategies. One of our investors, Alex Mendez was among them, however he wasn't assigned to our track. Instead Roland Van Der Meer, another VC we think highly of was assigned to our track. One of his teamates Baris Karadogan, who we didn't know prior, stood in for him though. I met him briefly in the hallway, and it was clear he had a strong sensibility for the space. When asked to point out his pick of the day, his answer was Buzzage. Nice. I knew I liked him.

-mc