Profiled - Glogster - The social network for fun expression
An interview Patrik Prepsl, Co-founder at Glogster
Glogster talks to SMP about social networks, education and maintaining the fun element though education
Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your full job title and role at Glogster?
Patrik Prepsl (PP): Co-Founder and Creative Director, but sometimes I am not sure
SMP: Tell us about Glogster, what is it and what does it do?
PP: Glogster is a social network for fun expression. Glogster gives users the ability to create a Glog ? an online rich media poster with text, photos, videos, music, graphics, and more. Glogster also runs a fast growing, successful education platform at
http://edu.glogster.com that inspires educators and students to be more creative in the classroom. Our internal motto to all of our audiences is ?Glogster is yours!? because we listen to our audiences in real-time and make changes to our products based on their critical feedback. We?ve created ?A new land you wouldn?t leave? and a place that helps cure boredom.
SMP: What made you start Glogster?
PP: We started Glogster from a simple idea from a focus group we made for projects in the past. We learned that people (mainly girls) need an online multimedia outlet for expressing themselves and they?ve become bored with their scrapbook notes + posters on wall. We also realized that educators and students needed a better multimedia platform for creativity in the classroom.
SMP: What is a Glog / Glogger?PP: A Glog is a rich media mix you create online that is full of text, photos, videos, music and your creativity. A Glogger is a person who loves to Glog about music, feelings, emotions, stories, friends, family, ideas, projects and so much more.
SMP: What was the most challenging part of building the service?PP: Keeping everything simple in an advanced tool. Fitting the ?unique social aspect? with ?user generated content?
SMP: Who are your target audience and why?
PP: Everybody and anybody can Glog, but mainly we attract Gloggers age 13 - 25 and students on Glogster EDU are 8 ? 21 years old. Our audience on the main site is skewed more female.
SMP: How did you initially attract users to your site /service, and how do you do it now?PP: We started with some basic online ads, but the site quickly became very viral and is now totally grown by referrals. We focus an extraordinary, unusual amount of attention on our users and their needs and wants. The concept we created around ?Glogster is Yours? helped create trust in our original audience and trust has grown from there. We will continue this trend no matter how large we get.
SMP: What are the low moments of what you have been doing so far?PP: When we were seeking the right business model for both sides; investors and Gloggers
SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far?PP: One of the most exciting moments was when teachers started to love us!
SMP: Now that you are established, what do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities?PP: Became the number 1 partner for the education world and develop a new format for the Glogster.com Media Mixer that satisfies current users, future users and all of our various types of partners
SMP: What are the next moves for Glogster?PP: A critical next step for us is to launch a new profile page for our loved users and finish new version of edu.glogster.com for our loved teachers! Our current audience is very loyal, so our focus needs to be on satisfying the needs of that audience as we grow.
SMP: What?s the next big step for social media and networks? PP: Social media needs to be more than just connecting to existing or past friends or meeting new people based on the same old similarities and media - it needs to be a true outlet for expression and to create an EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. Capturing the true, real-time emotions of people is difficult, but we are doing it each day at Glogster.com in a multi-media platform and we feel that this is the future of the social media and networks. It takes more than just a text message, an IM, a single picture, a blog, to capture emotion; it needs to be a Glog. The power to the people mentality needs to stay (i.e. Glogster is yours!), but in addition, social networks need a business model that is flexible, diversified, unique, and profitable, and we have all of those things here.
SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology throughout 2009?
PP: The rest of 2009 is such a short period of time, but it is an important time. From our research, education in the classroom is falling short. That gap needs to be filled and filled fast to satisfy the growing hunger and capacity to learn web 2.0 tools in the classroom by both teachers and students. Some schools and educators have a dated mentality that if ?it ain?t broke, don?t fix it? and that is not the correct approach. There are parts of the system that are proven and work very well now and always will, but we are in a new age and this new age of technology needs to be adapted in education as fast as the mainstream public and private sectors.
Also business models need to be clear and proven early in the process of new social media and networks; otherwise we may see another online bubble burst. Models need to be unique and provide new revenue streams that go far beyond traditional online ads. Advertising online is still effective, growing fast, and relatively inexpensive, but it is not engaging enough for the audience still.
SMP: What impact is the global recession having and what do you think the best way is to manage it for businesses such as yours? PP: Overall, the economy is obviously struggling and that has a tendency to drive down demand and therefore pricing of products and services. Going forward, managing the economy for Glogster continues to be a strategy around knowing and understanding what our current and future users want, catering to those needs, being ultra flexible and quick on our feet, and finding ways we can be financially rewarded for our efforts in a way that is profitable.
SMP: How does this fit into plans at Glogster?
PP: We think that there will always be people who are bored online who will want a site for expressing themselves like Glogster.com. And young people will still need to learn, right?
SMP: Best way to contact you?PP: At my email patrik.prepsl @ glogster.com
Now some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?
PP: Breakfast: Coffee / Lunch: Potato cream with steak
SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?PP: I took my family on holiday
SMP: How many hours to you work a week?PP: Zero because Glogster is more fun than a job J
SMP: If you weren?t running Glogster what would you be doing?PP: Creating other projects, campaigns, interactive ideas
SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?PP: Italy, near Venezia
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?PP: Mostly I write down an idea I have from the elevator
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?PP: Hiro?s ?ability to bend time and space? because your effectiveness grows to the max
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