Woo Media was an

online chat Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet that offers a real-time text, real-time transmission of text-based, text messages from sender to receiver. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participa ...

and

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

which offered a variety of interactive sites that provided live social entertainment through a computer or mobile device. The company raised $17 million in venture capital from several investors including

Index Ventures Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/ AI, and security. Since its f ...

, Atomico (founded by

Niklas Zennström Niklas Zennström (; born 16 February 1966) is a Swedish entrepreneur and technology investor. Zennström is also the co-founder of the charity organization Zennström Philanthropies. Education Zennström has dual degrees in Business Administr ...

and

Janus Friis Janus Friis (; born 26 June 1976) is a Danish entrepreneur best known for co-founding the file-sharing application Kazaa, and the peer-to-peer telephony application Skype. In September 2005, he and his business partner Niklas Zennström sol ...

), Mangrove Capital Partners, and

Klaus Hommels Klaus Hommels is a German venture capitalist. He focuses on early and growth-stage investments and has founded his own venture capital fund by the name of Lakestar, through which he has been investing mainly in digital businesses. He has been ...

. One analyst valued Woo Media at $41 million at the time it was funded. Online dating company

Zoosk Zoosk is an online dating service available in 25 languages and in more than 80 countries. The founders of the company are Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr, who ran the company until December 2014. After struggles that year, Kelly Steckelberg became ...

purchased Woo Media in November 2011. Zoosk purchased Woo Media for its properties’ commercial traction and for access to its 10 million active users.

Overview

Woo Media was created by Stephen Stokols, an American entrepreneur, technologist and executive in 2007 after a conversation with his sister about the difficulties using an

online dating service Online dating, also known as Internet dating, Virtual dating, or Mobile app dating, is a relatively recent method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An onlin ...

. Stokols had been working on new web based video technologies and used it to launch Woo Media’s first property, WooMe.com. Previously, Stokols served as the Vice President of new revenue opportunities at

BT Group BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broa ...

where he was responsible for evaluating applications of

browser-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

voice and video technologies. Upon launching the website at TechCrunch40 in 2007, the founding product, WooMe had an initial 1,000 users. The site’s user base grew to 1,000,000 users in the first twelve months. The site has since been featured in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

'', '' Metro.co.uk'', ''

Times Online ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fo ...

'', ''

Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...

'', ''

Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'', ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'' and ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

''. Stokols grew the organization from 5 employees in 2007 to over 60 in 2011. The company broadened its focus over the past 5 years and, at the time of its sale, included additional websites of various

interactive video The term interactive video usually refers to a technique used to blend interaction and linear film or video. History In 1962, Steve Russell, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), created Spacewar!, the world's first inter ...

experiences including one on one

experience (WooMe.com), reality TV

online video Internet video (online video / cloud-based video) is the general field that deals with the transmission of digital video over the internet. Internet video exists in several formats, the most notable being MPEG-4i AVC, AVCHD, FLV, and MP3. There ...

(WooMe.tv),

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

video chat (ShufflePeople.com), and

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

group video chat (MonsterChat.com). The Woo Media network had over 10 million active users with an average of 20 thousand registrants per day at the time of the sale to Zoosk.

Products and Services

''WooMe''

WooMe was an

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

based

online dating Online dating, also known as Internet dating, Virtual dating, or Mobile app dating, is a relatively recent method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An onlin ...

platform, which enabled

users Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing) A user is a person who ...

to meet in live

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

video sessions via webcam. WooMe requires no questionnaires, profile descriptions or software download. WooMe is allows users to meet new people around any shared interest. The original product model included online

speed dating Speed dating is a formalized matchmaking process which has the purpose of encouraging eligible singles to meet large numbers of new potential partners in a very short period of time. Organization Usually advance registration is required for ...

sessions which lets users create or join topical live speed

video chat Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

sessions, connecting with 3 people in 3 minutes. Currently, WooMe is a one-on-one video chatting product where individuals can meet in an online atmosphere. WooMe offers a

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...

model that is free to register and browse profiles. Within this model, the product serves ads and offers a subscription service with premium features including reading messages, viewing interested profiles, sending gifts, the ability to tag WooMe profiles, to browse and search profiles by

filtering Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

attributes including location and age, and to share profiles with friends on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

''WooMe.tv''

WooMe TV combined reality TV,

, and

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

. It was a social entertainment destination where users participated in live interactive video introductions, shared them with friends or the world, and watched interactive video introductions of others. Users could watch live online video posted by users who have authorized access to their WooMe profile, share favorite videos with friends through

social networks A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

and interact with other user profiles by rating and commenting on user videos. WooMe.TV amassed over 20 million total video views and 500,000 pieces of unique content before it was sold to

''ShufflePeople''

ShufflePeople was a random

introductions site that, like ChatRoulette and Omegle, enabled people from around the world to meet. This website randomly paired users to interact through their

web-based A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

cameras. Users have the ability to move on to another conversation at any point. They can also connect with

to meet other users through a

Facebook application The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook. The current Faceboo ...

. ShufflePeople was free and required no registration.

''MonsterChat''

MonsterChat was a group video chat room site that enabled friends to video chat with up to 16 people simultaneously. Users could create or join existing video

chat rooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

with up to 24 users to engage simultaneously around

trending topics Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, an ...

and interests. They could also connect with friends through an integrated buddy list including

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

Hotmail Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...

and

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

Controversy and criticism

In August 2008,

Chace Crawford Christopher Chace Crawford (born July 18, 1985) is an American actor. He is known for his television portrayals of Nate Archibald on The CW's teen drama series ''Gossip Girl'' (2007–2012), and of The Deep in Amazon Prime Video original series ...

criticized Woo Media after his picture was used without permission one of the Woo Media properties. Woo Media removed the picture, issued an official apology to Crawford for the oversight, and introduced screening measures.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Woo Media Homepage
Chat websites American social networking websites Defunct social networking services