Snapvine, a company that lets you leave voice message on profile pages in social networking sites, has raised $10 million. There are many competitors providing this type of service, without evidence any of them are making much money.
SayNow, one of Seattle-based Snapvine’s many competitors, raised $7.5 million last month.
The company, like other widget companies that are popular on social networks, is still experimenting with ways to be profitable. So far, it has done a couple of corporate advertising campaigns featuring banner ads and is looking at audio ads inserts — like Saynow.
To call another Snapvine user, you click on their widget in their social network profile to go to their Snapvine page (see screenshot at the bottom of the article), where you can leave them a voice message. Snapvine also gives each user a unique number, so you can call and leave messages on Snapvine from a phone.
Musicians and their fans are the most prominent users of these types of service, Snapvine, Saynow and others report. In part because of influential early adopters like musicians, voice-messaging companies have been growing fast. (See this Snapvine screenshot from 50 Cent’s Myspace page, incidentally a widget-heavy and slow-loading page even by Myspace standards.)
Snapvine claims to have five million installations across Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, Hi5 and other popular social networks since it launched last summer. Half the users are on Myspace, and the company isn’t saying how many people are actively using it, reports The Seattle PI. Saynow says it has
Bridgescale Partners led the round; previous investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, First Round Capital and angels.
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