Geesee – Slovakians on the fast track in chatting!
A recent article in the Economist posed (in my opinion) the most pertinent question about web 2.0 companies – is there enough of an audience to justify the slew of web based companies and services? Their reading was that instead of looking for the mythical critical mass, these companies focused on micro-audiences, right down to the level of one family, one group of friends or one company. Given that, yes, it made sense.
Geesee too is in this list of companies in the process of creating their own audiences, giving them a pertinent reason to visit and revisit.
Techcrunch defines it is "an embedded chat service that lets users communicate across any number of web sites in common chat rooms organized by tags."
It goes that one step ahead to personalize and make your site or blog more welcoming. The idea is to have your own chat rooms with the option of video-in-profile. You can invite whom you want, public and private chats are possible. There's not even a download involved, the user just needs to copy and paste a line of code and incorporate it into their blog html. It does however need Adobe Flash Player 8, which is downloadable for free.
Sounds too good? There's more. Your chat rooms can be organized using tags. So a visitor who clicks in, wanting to chat about frustrations at work, can easily find a few fellow sufferers to let off steam!
Technorati says 'Users from all over the world can connect to the service from various entry points. Users can join any room and talk to any other user about their favorite topic'
The company's logic is that even a single visitor to the site can connect up to anyone, anywhere, on any subject. Tags ensure a higher quality of information exchanged, giving visitors reasons to revisit/use Geesee. Plus features include simultaneous multiple chats and tabs that let you set it up that way you want (audio off/video on etc.).
Script.com rates Geesee a 4.66 on 5, saying 'High-quality chat service will add value to your site and will make your visitors return for more fun.'
The company behind GeeSee is located at Slovakia, and was co-founded by Milan Zigmond and Roman Pohancenik. Geesee gets its name from the acronym for Global Chat.
Geesee is a relatively new entrant to the web 2.0 market, there is no direct competition as yet, though services like MeeboMe and 3bubbles offer site owners messaging and limited chat services with visitors.
What they say in Slovakia – a chat with team Geesee
How does adding video to a profile enhance a blog or web site?
Adding video to a profile in chat does not have any impact on our blog or web site. It just makes chat more attractive and fun.
How active are the chats between Geesee users in terms of time length, details, and familiarity?
I can only tell that a chatter chats for about 5-10 minutes on an average. English speaking chatters do not have any problems with the UI and functionality. It's a bit of a problem for those who do not understand English, but we do have a language mutations support implemented and will make it available later this year.
How do you use your blog to market Geesee?
A Blog is a great tool to keep people informed. We are trying to post interesting content relative to our focus areas. Our blog is pinging many blog tracking services to make sure everybody knows about our new posts. Another thing is a high level of interactivity on our blog, through newsletters, flash poll, comments, chat, comment subscriptions and easy membership. The aim is to market Geesee by spreading the word and providing the necessary information for those who want it.
What sites or businesses would make strategic partnerships with Geesee?
We are very new to the market and are currently dealing with different businesses to set up some strategic partnerships. Different blog services, community sites, actually anybody can put Geesee on his site and that can evolve to some partnership eventually.
Can Geesee be used for interoffice communication or customer service?
Geesee can be used in many different ways. It was designed to give people the tool to play with and to invent its possibilities. On the other hand we haven't specialized the software for any specific purpose. Our vision for Geesee is: one big community of chatters with many user advantages.
What are the advantages of advertising in the Geesee chat network?
Advantages are in the structure and segmentation of Geesee users. They like to have fun, to chat, to play, to entertain themselves…They would be the target audience for just about any kind of product or service. Another advantage is that we can target the advertising based on the current conversation in the chat room, which makes it very effective in terms of CPC. Imagine you are chatting about a trip to London and you'll start getting the London Hotel deals and discounts ads. You change the conversation to software and there you go – new Vista is coming ad :).
What is the company culture of Geesee?
We are a small company, with relatively low expenses, since we are situated in Slovakia. We are very flexible and fast in terms of fixes, customer support and new features. An interesting thing is that we do not have any internal employees. The company consists of several people widespread across few cities (and countries) and collaborating together mostly through the Internet. It's amazing what you can do with your laptop and internet connection.
What specific skills will Geesee expect to see its employee in the near future?
We want to keep hiring young, enthusiastic, energetic people with a passion for technology and communication.
What do we see in Geesee?
The idea of finding a high quality chat is very attractive, though it depends entirely on the users…but hey isn't Wikipedia a great example of trusting users to set the standards? Video-in-profile chat sounds interesting, chatters can finally come out anonymity, though how many want to is the moot point. Chatter with other blog visitors can allow bloggers to generate buzz faster and easier.
The company seems to have got its commercial aspects right, but there's always a danger in letting advertisers in. Just remember what happened to TV, the ads always got in the way, right?