Shouting Match
Smart Business, September 2000
by Thomas Claburn
Ted Ganchiff recalls his moment of epiphany. "On November 24, 1998—to be precise, at 3:30 in the afternoon—I was listening to Internet radio, and it hit me that I was listening to the same institutional, corporate media that I'd always heard, and I thought people were missing the point."
For Ganchiff (pictured right) the point is that the Internet makes everyone part of the media. To prove it, he founded GiveMeTalk.com, "an Internet media and technology platform, enabling individuals and businesses to create, broadcast, and promote on-demand rich media to global Internet audiences." In other words, do-it-yourself Internet talk radio. Using the site's free audio software, you record your own show and post it for the world to hear.
Why talk radio? Beyond avoiding the licensing issues plaguing Napster and MP3.com (see "Hot Seat," page 38) and the technical ease with which users can create spoken content, Ganchiff says, "Everybody has wanted a soapbox. This is a way to get your voice out."
With more and more dot-coms on the financial ropes, it's also a way to go hoarse asking for funding from venture capitalists wary of profligate startups. To his credit, that's something Ganchiff understands—so he sought out an experienced helmsman for his company. "I haven't done this before," he explains. "I don't understand how to build a business that can sustain everything I want to do here."
Enter CEO William Gross (left), a 15-year veteran of the entertainment industry who left his job as a senior vice president at Disney for the white-knuckle startup ride. Why? "The truth is that I saw the sacrifices that Ted had made," Gross says, "and I saw his passion, and I thought I could make a contribution. I've built media brands before. So I threw myself into it." Grinning, he adds wryly, "A week after I got here I went, 'Oh my god, what have I done?' "
Just before GiveMeTalk announced its new CEO on April 12, the stock market's springtime gyrations rattled investor confidence and throttled the flow of funding. Nevertheless, Gross remains sanguine about the company's prospects, in part because the first round of funding went well. But mostly, he's as taken as the rest of the staff with the idea behind the business: giving voice to the people. "It's an idea that's as important to me as freedom of speech," he says.
It also resonates with the site's content creators and listeners—pegged at 20,000 in May and projected to double monthly. "I really, really like how it is a real democratic system," says Dr. Moira Gunn, host of National Public Radio's Tech Nation. "You can, with a very low threshold, get out there and do what you want and have it distributed. That's what I think technology is about."
But can the democratic and communal potential embodied by GiveMe Talk sustain a business? "There's the opportunity for all kinds of business models to work on the Internet, and I think this is one of them," says Joan FitzGerald, director of marketing for Arbitron Internet. According to a recent Arbitron study, advertisers are increasingly interested in supporting Web cast content, which bodes well for the likes of GiveMeTalk. Finally, advertisers are beginning to get it: Making money on the Internet requires interactions before transactions.
"This isn't really that glamorous," Gross says. "What this is, this is world changing, and I get to participate in that with Ted and the other people at GiveMeTalk.com. That's huge."
