The TechCrunch Social Currency event addressed a number of interesting topics including e-commerce/social commerce, mobile advertising, social gaming, geo-location services and online payments. In the panel on Social Commerce, moderated by TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid, we hear from some of the leaders in this space.
Aaron Batalion, CTO and Co-Founder, LivingSocial
Gurbaksh Chahal, CEO, gWallet
Kevin Hartz, CEO and Co-Founder, Eventbrite
David Marcus, CEO and Founder, Zong
Christian Taylor, CEO and Founder, Payvment
Below: David Marcus of Zong
“We do mobile payments and have partnerships with 200 carriers in 41+ countries. We allow people to buy things on their cell phone. We try to really get targeted so we can remove all the friction of a transaction. You have to integrate into carriers and build infrastructure. You have to build a payment structure with the proper back-end activity – it took us nearly 10 years to build it. With regard to social commerce, if you consider that there are several layers in social commerce (group buying), couponing and the local stuff like FourSquare, none of those apps have everything. When you walk into a place that offers coupons, you can be told, i.e., oh your friend bought this and you can also get it for half price.”
Below: Christian Taylor of Payvment
“There’s stuff out there, ‘if I become a fan, you get a discount’ – we’re excited about where credits is going. It works great for digital goods, which is exactly what Facebook is focusing on. We hope it eventually gets into our space. We hope to provide the defacto payment platform.”
Below: Gurbaksh Chanal of gWallet
On Facebook versus gWallet, he says, “Facebook does a good job with credits, but if you look at the offers approach, they’re not doing it right. They’re not an ‘offer’ company, they’re a platform. It’s different than going to a landing page of a brand, which is the demand we create and provide. Over the past ten months, we have brought 120 major brands into the category – they love the space and love social gaming – every premium publisher would make more money through us and if they don’t, we’ll write them a check for $20,000. We’re trying to take advantage of curiosity.”
Below: Aaron Batalion of LivingSocial
“Our key consumer incentive is if you can get 3 of your friends to buy, yours is for free – what’s built into that is trust from people you know. Because we focus on hyperlocal, more trust is inherently built in…..people recognize something if its local.”
Below: Kevin Hartz of Eventbrite
“We’ve been doing a lot of experiementation with Facebook; we have various integration points with Facebook. Events are naturally social – you find about events in a social environment, i.e., what your friends are attending and doing. When Connect came out, and we saw the organic growth. We see this as a vector for fast growth, so we have integrated into Facebook and also Twitter with great success. Events and ticketing is very transactional – Facebook does some things very well but they’re not a transactional business.”
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
