The New Guard
Mar 19 2008By Amanda C. Kooser
High-tech heavyweights may reign supreme, but some newbies have their eyes on the throne
Zannel
The company:
Zannel’s Instant Media Messaging platform lets users network from their phones with videos, pictures and text. It’s positioned to take on textcentric social networking and micro-blogging leader Twitter.
The founders:
CEO Adam Zbar, 38; CTO Braxton Woodham, 36; and vice president of technology Harry Evans, 32
The difference:
Multimedia is key to Zannel’s success. Its service takes advantage of the many mobile phones that now come with still and video cameras, can embed updates on Facebook and MySpace, and is now optimized for viewing on Apple’s iPhone.
In their words:
“The good news is that a number of the major challenges facing mobile social networking—such as mobile web adoption, carrier walled gardens, 3G network rollouts—are rapidly disappearing as the mobile ecosystem evolves,“ says Zbar. “The remaining challenge is to create a true mobile social networking experience that leverages a phone’s unique capabil-ities vs. trying to duplicate the online experience.“
The article goes on to profile two other companies: Ning and Powerset
Source
Entrepreneur Magazine - March 2008