Although Dutch rapper Frank Schuil - who’s also CEO and founder of IRL Connect - didn’t want to rap spontaneously, Viktoria’s interview with him is definitely worth watching: IRL is a 2009 Red Herring 100 Europe winner as one of the most promising and innovative technology companies in the EMEA region as well as one of the most actively discussed posts on Techcrunch Europe.
„We created a web-centered visual social network that allows you to see on Google Maps what your friends from several social networks - including the mobile social networks - are doing and enables you to interact with them“ says Frank, „it’s about tapping into graphical experience for the user and creating location awareness on the web.“ Frank points out that „every social network today knows that it has to open up to grow and become part of the social ecosystem. Only the mobile social networks are creating walled gardens on the mobile again - that’s why a lot of them run into problems. By having this web counterpart they have a way of opening up again.“
In order to monetize its products, IRL Connect applies on the one hand a B2C model where they sell map real estate. On the other hand they have a B2B model where the IRL interface and the visual social networking experience is applied to the business environment: „It allows you to see where your employees are all over the world and you can interact with them. It is also a way to engage in conversations with your costumers“, explains Frank. IRL Connect is closing partnerships with the existing webplayers to really enable the centralized platform it is aiming for. To secure new growth opportunities, it plans to partner up with mobile social networks.
Further interviews from Red Herring 100 Europe will be published here during the next days.
25.09.2009 at 17:09
[...] E’ stato sviluppato da Frank Schuil, il rapper olandese che ha fondato e dirige In Real Life, azienda premiata lo scorso fine marzo tra le prime 100 compagnie più promettenti del 2009 al Red Herring Europe (guarda l’intervista). [...]