coComment creates a network around your comments, so they can be shared and linked to a wider discussion community. The site was founded in February last year and, now backed by SwissCom and NetAge, employs 21 staff at its base in Geneva and at a second office in San Francisco.
Chief executive Matt Colebourne explains more.
coComment chief executive Matt Colebourne
• Explain your business to my Mum.
"coComment lets you keep track of your comments about online articles and blogs, and lets you discuss with other users. When the article or blog becomes old, your opinions can still thrive."
• How do you make money?
"Advertising, marketing research and web analytics services."
• What's your background?
"I joined coComment from LunarStorm, the largest Scandinavian social networking provider, where I was chief executive and oversaw the UK launch. I have twenty years' experience managing companies and a decade of experience in the internet space, starting in the founding team of DoubleClick and as senior vice president and general manager of Espotting. I have an honours degree in computing science from Imperial College."
• How many users do you have now, and what's your target within 12 months?
"We have just over 1m users, and targets of more than 5m in 12 months."
• What's your biggest challenge?
"Balancing continual development of functionality with improved usability. The market calls for new announcements and new offerings continually, so incorporating that into our product without making it overly complex and hard to use is a challenge.
"As a chief executive, the biggest challenge I find is to balance focus with openness. I need to be focused to ensure we hit our goals but, at the same time, I have to be open to new approaches because the market changes so fast."
• Name your competitors.
"Co.mments, Commentful, Intense Debate and SezWho."
• If you had £10m to invest in another web business, what would you invest in?
"Someone who can figure out web/telephony interaction in a seamless fashion which plays to each medium's strengths."
• What's the weirdest business experience you've had so far?
"Asking that of someone who's been in business for 20 years is asking for trouble! There has been so much weirdness that it is very hard to pick out the zenith. However, this one still sticks in my mind after nearly 10 years:
"A management team made up of people from UK/US/Spain/Germany/Italy/Sweden/Belgium was attending a short conference. The conference hotel boasted an extensive spa and after the first day, pretty much everyone decamped there late afternoon.
"However, the English and American contingent, replete with swimming trunks, were stopped by a disgusted German colleague: "You can't come into the spa in wearing swimming trunks - it's disgusting and unhygienic and clothes are not permitted".
"I've always remembered this one because it's such a glorious, and funny, example of different cultural norms."
• Are we in the middle of a new dot com bubble?
"No, but I do think some companies are massively over-valued. The difference from the first bubble is that it's not endemic. There are always 'darlings' in any industry which attract interesting valuations, but if you look at the industry overall you don't see the inflated valuations across the whole sector."
• Where do you want the company to be in five years?
"Profitable, ubiquitous, growing, diversified and a fun place to be."
• Are you the next big thing?
"Absolutely. coComment was the first comment aggregator and has over 14m conversations running by more than 1m users, and we're crawling, and integrating with 250,000 sites and blogs. Everyone has an opinion, and brands can also research what users are saying about their products. Talk might be cheap, but comments are invaluable."
Do you use coComment? How do you rate it? How do you think the site will evolve?
