A Real-Time, Multimedia Social Network You Might Not Know: Paltalk CEO Jason Katz (Part 4)

SM: How does your revenue break down between subscription and ads?

JK: About 85% of our revenue comes directly from consumers paying. The other 15% is from advertising.

SM: A lot of people have created groups using your service. In your mind, what types of group do you serve best? What scenario would illustrate Paltalk as a ‘killer application’?

JK: It is a real-time social network. A lot of social networks have endured being asynchronous. Nowhere does a social network exist that allows video conferencing in real time. That has been my thesis from the beginning. When you have buddy lists, you know when other people are online.

SM: You have a one-on-one model there, but do you monetize that?

JK: We do not monetize our one-to-one model. We give the software and service free at that level. We find that people like to chat in groups. Instead of trying to program those groups, I will let users program them and be their own administrators. Chat always had a negative connotation because you may not know whom you are typing to on the other end. With our audio and video service you know who you are talking to. It’s harder to hide there.

SM: If you have five people on your buddy list and you want to have a chat with all five, is that free or paid?

JK: That is free. We call it Super IM. We allow up to ten people for free. Each user is assigned a Web URL to use. They can disseminate that URL to people who do not have Paltalk. As long as the other person can open a Web browser that person can also video conference; no software download is required. That is a big idea and it is different from other companies that require you to have their software running. I don’t think you should require people to use any particular software. I like the idea of giving users a URL that lets anyone join.

SM: Are you seeing adoption in the business or consumer world?

JK: Our service is primarily consumer oriented. Very early on I did observe that some people might want to use our software for business applications. The free use case did not make sense to me for commercial use. In that scenario we require paying for the room. There are eight hundred customers who pay for their rooms. As a result, they receive additional capabilities that others do not have.

Some of those commercial uses include stock market information dissemination. If companies have subscribers to their service, they have to figure out how to disseminate information to their investors. Of course they could use newsletters or blogs, but if they purchase a room they can disseminate that information in real time. Their customers enter the room via a password and we have had upward of three thousand people in a single room.

SM: What does a commercial room cost?

JK: Costs range from $40 a month to over $1,000 a month. Our regular subscription is $15 a month or $60 a year. The commercial business has grown into a real business on its own. Our customers essentially demanded that capability. We listened and delivered.

This segment is part 4 in the series : A Real-Time, Multimedia Social Network You Might Not Know: Paltalk CEO Jason Katz
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