Ypulse Interview: Joe Heitzeberg, Founder of Snapvine

I've been interviewing a few people for my next BusinessWeek Online Viewpoint column about the MySpace ecosystem over the past couple of weeks. I was really interested in how teens have been driving the development of these standalone applications and services that exist to be used on social networks like MySpace and Bebo. Like many people, I had never heard of Snapvine before it popped up as the number two teen site in October according to research firm Nielsen NetRatings. Based in Seattle, Snapvine lets people add or send voice messages to most social networks including MySpace and Tagged.com. I thought Joe gave some interesting responses worth posting as a stand alone interview.

Ypulse: Where did the idea for Snapvine first come from? Was it designed to be a stand alone app or always with the intention of living on profiles/social networks?

Joe Hitzberg: We designed Snapvine to work with the user's existing social networks and with whatever mobile device and mobile network they already have.

The idea for Snapvine came through realizing that today's teens have grown up with a very rich, personalized communication experience that's only available through their PC — but not through their mobile device. Snapvine's opportunity is to bridge that gap and connect to the user where they already are — their online social networks.

YP: What percentage of your users are teens? How much do you attribute Snapvine's success to this demographic?

JH: Teens are approximately 60 - 70%, although we span nearly every age group. We view teens as our early adopter market because they tend to be online and have mobile phones, and they are apt to adopt new technology.

YP: What is the most common type of message teens leave with Snapvine?

As with MySpace, the most common type of message has to do with keeping in touch and letting the other person know you are thinking about them. However the interesting thing is they are using Snapvine to sing songs and rap over the phone, keep in touch with groups, share stories about their daily life and so forth; very different from how our generation uses traditional telephone voice mail.

Snapvine is also commonly used by celebrities. Major celebrities like 50 Cent and T.I., top YouTube stars and thousands of independent artists all use Snapvine for a more personal way to stay connected with fans.

YP: Do you see this ecosystem of add ons to social networks like MySpace growing, and if so in which directions?

JH: Yes it is growing. In social networks, the first generation of add-ons had to do with personalization one's page (layouts, graphics, videos and slideshows). The next generation of add-ons will provide control over the user experience itself. Examples of this trend include add-ons for mobility and communication (like Snapvine) and services that adapt ecommerce apps to the social networking setting (like SNOCAP).

YP: What do you think has been the biggest factor in your success, both in the application itself and in the marketing of Snapvine?

JH: On both counts, it's our focus on the end user. This means providing value and ease of use to our users, and making sure our platform performs well under load and scales to millions.

Note from Anastasia: I did a similar interview with the CEO of Slide - look for it next week.

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