Sinobytes

Interview: Zuosa co-founder & CEO Alex Mou

Oct 13, 2009 16:28

I recently sat down with the CEO and co-founder of Zuosa, Alex Mou, to discuss life as a Chinese Web 2.0 company, how users "tweet" with their service, and upcoming plans to generate revenue.

Zuosa, as I covered in my previous review, is a Twitter-like platform. It had an interesting incarnation as it was inspired by its angel investor to morph from its 2006 origins as a value-added chatroom and group board provider into a microblogging service. Alex Mou, a native of Wuhan in central China, worked in Silicon Valley for 13 years, and Zuosa's angel investor is also a Chinese businessman familiar with Silicon Valley, so they "got" and realized the potential of Twitter early on, way before Twitter became mainstream some time in 2008.

So, in 2007, Zuosa relaunched as a microblogging platform, and remains the biggest such independent service in the face of competition from major Chinese Web portals such a Sina, Tencent, and maybe soon, Baidu, too.

"Zuosa has always been open," stressed Alex, "we've had an API from the start, and we need third-party developers to be doing stuff with us. Because we're independent, we need to be more open. The competition is fierce, and they're trying to eat our food, so to speak."

So, on Zuosa's Tools page, there are currently 16 third-party utilities, many of which are desktop or mobile apps on which you can tweet and read what the people you follow are saying. Plus, you can post to Zuosa via MSN, GTalk or Skype. Of course, there's also the site itself, in regular and mobile flavors.

"Most users post updates on the Web site," Alex explained, "or the WAP [mobile] site. SMS is really popular, too, and you can use MMS for posting photos."

Photos are hosted by Zuosa, and any URLs entered get automatically shrunk down to a Zuosa.net tiny URL.

Zuosa has a few apps built-in, which is not something Twitter has (except its @spam, I guess), such as the much-used dictionary app--@dict--which will do a translation on any Chinese or English word or phrase you query it on.

A platform, and a stage
During my discussion with Alex, he emphasized the word "platform" a number of times, and it seems as if the broad possibilities of microblogging are what made Zuosa into its current form.

Sinobytes: How, and why, do Zuosa's users communicate on it?

Alex: It's because it's easy to express themselves there [on Zuosa or Twitter]. They want to make more friends, gain more knowledge; knowledge about the world, as well; and so it helps the users themselves, and it all helps China and the economy. The more we're communicating, the more we're understanding, and learning, and doing business together, too. Young Chinese people are great at using the Internet.



Sinobytes: Are your users mostly young Chinese, and maybe quite tech-oriented, sort of like on Digg.com, or in the earlier days of Twitter?

Alex: No, they're all ages. Young Chinese people are great at using the Internet, but I see we have some users who are a bit older. I've noticed a 65-year-old lady on the site. They discuss everything: Share jokes, interesting links, news, and photos about what they're doing now.

Sinobytes: Why does the "open platform" appeal so much to you?

Alex: For sharing ideas and learning, it's perfect. Communicating faster and spreading information between people positively helps the economy. Also, it's a conductor for commerce. For companies, it's a great way to spread PR and do customer service. Like Dell already does this on Zuosa.

Future plans
Twitter has yet to turn a profit, and has not yet decided and/or revealed how it intends to generate revenue. Alex admits that Zuosa cannot wait so long, and has plans lined up for services it'll integrate into Zuosa...

Sinobytes: What's next for you?

Alex: A way to make money! Value-added services are the way for us. And people will pay for these, we feel. SMS subscriptions, where certain updates get sent to your phone, will be done, for sure. Like, on Zuosa, we have China's most important Buddhist Master who regularly tweets, and a lot of other respected Masters, so SMS subscriptions for these would work really well--and subscriptions for other topics, too. We'll choose more later.

Sinobytes: Will mobile be more important? How about apps for Symbian and Windows Mobile, which are more popular in China, and later for the iPhone, Android, etc?

Alex: Yes, mobile will be more important for us. We already have the WAP site, but we'll put more emphasis on mobile use. But we'll probably have third-party developers do any mobile apps.

The Silicon Valley days
Alex's 13 years in Silicon Valley, firstly as a software engineer--making Palm PDA apps and Palm desktop syncing solutions--and then later as an entrepreneur, came after seven years as a post-graduate student in France. It was, Alex conceded, a long time away from home, but this seemed to have imbued him with extra passion for getting people around the world talking and learning from one another.

On the subject of the hurdles and pitfalls of being in the business of communication in China, Alex is phlegmatic: "We'll struggle to adapt to local regulations, as we always do. It's not easy. But, as I said before, sharing knowledge and learning together will benefit the economy, and that helps China, so this [tweeting/blogging] is a really good thing."

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