Snapvine was a
Seattle, Washington startup company that specialized in providing
voice-over-IP features for the users of
social networks. The company was founded in 2005 by Joe Heitzeberg, who was the
CEO
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of the company.
In 2006, the company raised $2 million from the
venture capital firms
Draper Fisher Jurvetson and
First Round Capital. Russell Siegelman, a partner in the
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and former
Microsoft executive, personally invested in the company and sat on its
board of directors
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
.
In July 2006, the company had six employees, 20,000 users, and had recently moved its headquarters to
Belltown, Seattle.
In 2007, Snapvine raised $10 million from the venture capital firm Bridgescale Partners.
In September 2007, the company had grown to 18 employees, and its product had five million downloads on
Myspace,
Facebook,
Bebo,
Hi5. Celebrities
50 Cent
Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor, and businessman. Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began pursuing a musical career in 2000, when he produced ...
,
Enrique Iglesias
Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (; (born 8 May 1975) is a Spanish singer and songwriter. He started his recording career in the mid-1990s on the Mexican indie label Fonovisa and became the bestselling Spanish-language act of the decade. By the ...
, and
Vanessa Hudgens used Snapvine on their Myspace pages.
Its
software widget was used in 200 social networks, and its voice player was invoked 22 million daily by users accessing their accounts.
Snapvine monetized its product by selling banner ads, as well as voice ads users must hear as a prerequisite to making and sending their own recordings to other social media users.
According to
TechCrunch, the company's competitors in 2007 were SayNow, Jangl, and
Jaxtr
__NOTOC__
Jaxtr is a social communications company that melds together global calling, SMS, and social networking. Founded by Phillip Mobin and Touraj Parang in October 2005, jaxtr uses Voice over Internet Protocol to offer competitive rates as we ...
.
After experiencing a
viral growth among
Myspace users, the company was acquired by the company
Whitepages for $20 million in 2008.
Whitepages founder and CEO
Alex Algard
Alex Algard is an Internet entrepreneur. He is the founder and former CEO of Hiya, Ekata and the founder and former CEO of Whitepages.com, and CarDomain.
Biography
His father was Swedish and his mother was Korean.Feldman, Amy (August 23, 2016) ...
said he intended to combine Snapvine's functionality with Whitepages, a site people used to obtain the contact information of people with whom they have lost contact. Algard hoped that when people searched for themselves online, they would find their Whitepages profile. They could then substitute their phone numbers with newly created Snapvine voicemail accounts, allowing users not to have to disclose their phone numbers.
The majority of Snapvine's 25 employees were expected to join Whitepages at Whitepages' Seattle office after the acquisition.
Snapvine ceased its operations on March 31, 2010.
References
External links
Official websiteof Snapvine from the
Wayback Machine on March 1, 2010
Defunct companies based in Seattle
Computer companies established in 2005
VoIP companies of the United States
American companies established in 2005
2005 establishments in Washington (state)
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