Talkr Up For Sale - More Web 2.0 Fallout
We're
starting to see a lot of startups either shutting
down, fading
away or being put
up for sale. The latest is Talkr, an
automated text-to-voice service that we actually use here on Read/WriteWeb. At
the bottom of each R/WW post, you'll see an
Audio link - click on that to hear a computer-generated female voice read
out the post. I introduced this feature back in
June 2005 and have kept it around because it's a great accessibility tool -
i.e. it provides a way for people with visual disabilities or reading problems to
read this blog. There are other similar
services too, such as Botcast
Network.
So why has Talkr decided to put itself up for sale? Founder Chris Brooks explained in a blog post that he hasn't been able to monetize the product, resulting in him not being able to introduce new features. He wrote:
"I began work on Talkr in March of 2005, and after nearly two years of banging on this idea, I have decided to try to find it a permanent corporate home. I strongly believe that Talkr will thrive as methods of monetizing podcasts become simpler and more robust. Bloggers will provide content and distribution and Talkr will provide increasingly sophisticated text to speech, and ad integration."
This is a sign of the times unfortunately, that a lot of web 2.0 startups haven't been able to achieve network effects and/or monetize their services. In Talkr's case, I think the technology itself has great potential - so hopefully it gets a buyer. Also, as Chris points out in the eBay sale page, there is a growing market for audio advertisements in podcasts - in December Google released a product called "Audio Ads", which allows advertisers to place audio advertisements in radio.
Talkr is up for sale on eBay, where the reserve is $10,000. Also on that page are some stats: 2,173 bloggers have registered more than 3000 blogs with Talkr; 1,179 of those bloggers have agreed to accept advertising in the audio that Talkr generates.
MP3 downloads from blogs that use Talkr have shown steady growth:
Sep 2006: 21,576
Oct 2006: 31,098
Nov 2006: 32,087
Dec 2006: 38,783
(Excludes major bots)
Chris also reveals some useful stats about his revenue and expenses:
Talkr's Expenses:
Talk currently uses 3 servers, one, which hosts the web application, the crawler, and stores the actual audio files, a second which hosts the text-to-speech server, and a third which hosts the images displayed on blogs. Those costs run $313 a month.
DNS hosting runs $25 a year
Site monitoring runs $5 a month
Recurring annual Text-to-speech server licenses (will be disclosed to bidders upon request).Talkr's Revenue:
I have experimented with Google AdSense, Referral partnership with Audible.com (via cj.com) and Text Link Ads. The link ads have been the most successful, generating $42.50 in revenue in December 2006."
So it seems both expenses and revenue are pretty low right now. It sounds like the undisclosed "Recurring annual Text-to-speech server licenses" is the biggest expense.
How many more web 2.0 startups are going to put themselves up for sale or stop development? It seems like a bit of a trend right now...
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This is a shame, I hope he makes his money back.
I think this service would be a good fit for a larger ad network.
I wonder how much the text to speech is costing and if he would actually be better off porting the whole service over to Amazon Web Services. He'd save on the server hosting right away as he'd only need 2 servers and just let S3 server the images.
Here's a warning regarding TalQr - Don't download it for personal use. I made the mistake of downloading and found it to be very aggressive insomuch that I am unable to remove it. I'm not even able to remove Skype now because of TalQr's aggressiveness. I've contacted TalQr via its software only to be ignored. I'm sure that this will happen to anyone who is lame enough to think that its a fantastic idea like I did. Just call me "lame."
TalQr bites.
[Editor's Note: this commenter is talking about a different product. TalQr *is not* the same as Talkr.]
I wrote in my blog that 2007 will be the year of the great purge among web 2.0 start ups. Only those that can stand the heat will stick around. If someone wants to create a product, they ought to believe their users will want it so bad they would be willing to pay for it via subcription or patronage.
Talkr may just have been poorly marketed as I view it to be fairly innovative. However, its a clear signal that ads alone cannot be thought to sustain most start ups.
My blog post is here if anyone is interested. http://intensewebmedia.com/blog/2007/01/08/2007-the-year-of-the-great-purge-and-the-end-of-web-20/
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the note about Talkr. I'd just like to point out that Talkr and TalQr are completely unrelated. Talkr is a web service -- there's nothing to install on your desktop.
Thanks,
Chris
Chris, thanks for stopping by. I've appended a note to comment #2.
If I was a company I'd definetly consider buying them up.
Yes...the trend with Web 2.0 is not looking to promising. However I do wonder about the pace of Web 2.0 an can't help but think that some of these companies with some brilliant ideas may just be running slightly ahead of their time.
The rush to get to a critical mass does not help and only serves to increase users fatigue with so many different things online worth looking at.
Startups may very need be a lot more deliberate about how they pace themselves.
That's a steal at $10K. I'd buy it if I had the investment capital.
There is a lot of potential there for the right company.
Real bad to see that Talkr is for sale. I was planning on implementing the same on my blog next week, but I guess I should give that plan up :(
Any other similar services available?
Hey Richard,
We here at the Botcast Network are ready to pick up the fallen torch
http://feeds.feedburner.com/RebotcastReadsReadWriteweb
We also hava a telephone-based offering, where users can listen to their Bloglines subscriptions.
http://www.botcastbuddy.com/prod/buddy/main.php
Or maybe you'd like something customized for your site. There's a wonderful world of text-to-speech and speech-to-text out there, and it's not going away.
So put us on your calendar. Or put yourself on our calendar (www.robocal.com).
Our secret? We don't have a business model!
Ted Gilchrist
Hey Ted interesting stuff you have there. You left every thing but your phone number :)
>>>We here at the Botcast Network are ready to pick up the fallen torch
I don't think the torch is fallen, the idea of the sale is it _pass_ the torch to some one that can run with it better : )
Also your http://www.botcastnetwork.com , if the is yours needs some help with the user interface.
Any way I bid $12k for www.talkr.com on www.ebay.com . It will save me from finishing up the blogtalkr project I am currently working on.