Snooth

I've written about NY-based wine resource Snooth several times before. Today I headed down to the Snooth world headquarters in NYC and met with founder Philip James. Our discussion is captured in a video below.

Some of the important takeaways from the interview include:

• Snooth is aiming to be the IMDB of wine
• They are the largest online wine resource
• They list wine from 35,000 wineries and in 48 countries - you can actually search for a wine in any of these countries and find a local merchant that has the wine you are looking for in-stock
• 1 million searches a month
• Snooth has over 2 million wine reviews
• They are looking at a multi-dimensional revenue model: ads, affiliate sales and data aggregation
• Philip also shared details on their latest release -- a mobile app that will be a game changer for wine - you can enter your location and get help with what wine to buy, where to buy it near where you are and if they have it in stock.

Check out the video for more information about Snooth.

NY-based wine social networking service Snooth will announce today their expansion into 40 countries. This makes the site more comprehensive than only covering wine in the U.S. and should bring a new userbase to the network. Snooth has added a worldwide price and merchant database and connects users with local merchants in their area.

Snooth CEO Philip James tells me that their goal is to “establish a truly global wine resource, complete with social elements, detailed recommendations, editorial content, and seamless merchant connections.”

We initially reviewed Snooth back in November when they presented at a meetup in NYC. Snooth is a social shopping site and offers suggestions on which wines you might like based on your reviews and ratings. Revenue is generated on a clickthru/purchase from a wine merchant. Back in November I noted that affiliate commissions alone might not be enough to sustain the company in the long-term. I still believe they are best to look at diversifying their income stream.

NY-based Snooth has announced a $1 million angel round of financing today. This is in addition to their previous $300k funding round raised in December 2006.

Snooth is a data aggregator - they pull in content from thousands of sources. Snooth claims to be a "social shopping site" and their recommendation engine also provides customized selections based on stated preferences and user feedback. The more information a user gives on wines they enjoy, the more personalized and detailed the recommendations become. Snooth also maintains a wine database with over 1.9 million reviews for over 300,000 wines.

The new funds will be used to scale the development team, integrate the current backlog of merchants that have already partnered with Snooth, and add new retailers worldwide.

Check out our write-up of Snooth from the NY Social Networking Meetup from earlier this month.

Tonight was the Social Networking Meetup and the Web / Internet Entrepreneurs & Startups Meetup held together at a bar called SlatePlus. The event is organized by Brett Petersel and Oz Sultan. This meetup began as 5 people in a bar and has grown to what I count at about 150+ people tonight. I believe it's the third largest tech meetup group after the NY Tech Meetup and the NY Video Meetup. I enjoy this meetup as it's a bit more social than the NY Tech Meetup but not a full-on social event.

Before I provide my commentary on the presentations, let me hop on my box for a moment. When you present your idea to anyone or any group, bring your A game. I will do everything I can to get you exposure via CN along with many other bloggers, but if you can't get the people excited, will the product succed? In a bar/club environment where it's loud and dark, it's critical to draw in your audience immediately. I noticed a couple of tonight's presenters speaking to the first two rows of couches and ignoring the people in the back. And that's why they began their own meetup in the back. This is your baby, get excited about it and show some passion! If you don't know how to present, learn or have someone else do it. Ok, I am done. Now onto the quick presentation recaps:

Buddy Media - AceBucks Product - Jeff Ragovin

Jeff begins by explaining that AceBucks is the largest loyalty program on Facebook. The idea is this: You install the applications that work with AceBucks and you earn credits for playing the games or doing the AceBucks earning actions. If you like to play games, and want to win prizes, this is the Facebook app for you!

They are working on expanding AceBucks past Facebook to OpenSocial and Bebo. Jeff showed a bunch of stats including 170k Sudoku installs in first 3 weeks since launch, 1.2 million AceBucks installs since 10/1.

Today they launched the AceBucks storefront which allows you to sell anything you don't want and receive AceBucks in return. Once you get a bankroll of AceBucks, you can spend them in their auction! You can also use your credits to purchase Facebook trinkets to send to your friends like the Facebook daily gifts.

While this model works with a few niche demographics, I am not sold it works on Facebook for the long-term. Who wants to sell a Blackberry and not walk away with cash? Jeff ended the presentation by saying that anyone could have a card worth 250 AceBucks. But the cards he handed out are just his business cards - so I have to email him just to get the credits? Why not hand out a card with a link to get the bucks directly? Since Facebook is tied into logins, there shouldn't be any gaming, and it saves me time and removes another resistance point. It's like getting a new gameboy on your birthday and having no batteries.

Convos

Convos was up next (I didn't catch the presenter's name) - they provide a group application. It's very good looking - has an Outlook feel to it. The idea is to take real world groups and manage them online. The presenter said that it's a real Web app because it "has a lot of buttons". It's built on Adobe Flex2 and uses Amazon Web Services as well.

Convos has no ads and uses a freemium model. Up to two groups a year is free, after that it moves up to $39/yr depending on usage.

One of the audience questions was around the competitiveness of the group space and what makes Convos different. The presenter noted that the differentiators are in the interface and their quick ability to add new features based on the usage of the Flex platform.

I'd like to see Convos tie into an authentication scheme already available - whether it's Facebook, Google, or even OpenID. One of the reasons Yahoo Groups and Google Groups are popular is because everyone has an id for both of those services already.

Snooth - Philip James

Snooth is a wine social networking application and Philip described Snooth as a "social shopping site". Reminds me a bit of Cork'd. They have a Facebook application to help push distribution. The site looks very nice - has many Ajax features. Snooth is a data aggregator - they pull in content from thousands of sources. This is one area that Snooth differs from Cork'd in that the Cork'd community creates the content.

Once you review 5 wines, Snooth will then start to serve up suggestions for future wines based on your tastes.

Snooth generates revenue from the clicks they send to the wine shops - they have 1,000 shops in the database currently. I struggle with this as a sole business model. Think about TripAdvisor. I will review a hotel there but purchase from the site I choose. TripAdvisor serves ads so they still benefit. Nothing stops me from enjoying the reviews on Snooth and then buying the wine down the street.

RadiusIM - John Londono

Last up was RadiusIM which is a Web IM client similar to Meebo and eBuddy. The difference is that RadiusIM focuses on location to help you find new buddies. In NYC for a meeting, check out other people on RadiusIM that are in your area. RadiusIM works with AIM, Yahoo IM and Google Talk.

John shared some stats: 600k unique visitors since launch, 160k registered users with 50k in the past 30 days and 125 million IMs exchanged. While not as robust as eBuddy or Meebo, it's pretty groovy. Of course, the only people you see on the map are those using RadiusIM. John noted that monetization will come later on and that if his users stay on for 2 hour session lengths, once they reach a critical mass, advertisers will be very interested.

They are hiring for Java developers along with Javascript and Ajax programmers. Contact John if interested.

John ended the presentation by noting that RadiusIM is a great way to discover new friends. I could see a quick acquisition by eBuddy or Meebo as both would benefit from this technology.