Ah, Vienna. The beauty of the Danube River Valley, the majesty of Sch�nbrunn, the ghost of Harry Lime, and of course... dialers. Yes, here among the coffee houses and the Vienna Boy's Choir resides goodthinxx (www.goodthinxx.com), a thriving company that has built a solid reputation in the audiotext/Internet dialer business.
Founded ten years ago (and formerly known as Studio Opera), goodthinxx is owned by three partners - Walter Toifl, Tanja Rahman, and Jean-Christophe Gramont - and employs a staff of 20. Offices are also located in Hamburg, Paris, and Las Vegas. Via European partnerships with the likes of Alta Vista and Lycos, and American ties to Cybererotica and others, goodthinxx and its subsidiaries pay customers close to $4 million on a monthly basis.
For Gramont, sales and marketing chief for goodthinxx, a fundamental goal is to tap into the specific needs of the consumer. "Nowadays, you can find all kinds of content in all languages on the Internet, but if the surfer doesn't find what he wants, he's gone forever," says Gramont. "If he's a French surfer looking for Asian beauties, give him that option... and in French, of course."
It's an understanding of the varying languages and cultures which comprise the fast-growing European marketplace, that has lead goodthinxx to offer five different languages to correspond with each of their 15 niche sites.
"It's very, very complicated in Europe," says Gramont. "Food, languages, culture, architecture. The first time you come to Europe, it's like a shock, everything is different. If you fly from Paris to Venice, it has nothing to do with one another - or Copenhagen to Madrid. No matter, it's another world. It takes European people to take care of European customers."
Gramont describes goodthinxx's function as offering customized business solutions to American Webmasters who want to deal with international traffic and/or enter European markets. Transforming international traffic via the dialer service is at the heart of the operation. As U.S Webmasters seek out a guide to shepherd them through the process, Gramont's feeling is that goodthinxx simply does this best. He points to the various nationalities comprising the employee base at goodthinxx. Gramont himself is French with the ability to speak not only his native language, but also English, Italian, and Spanish. And with Germany being the largest market, it's a benefit when one of the founders hails from there.
Says Gramont: "We're good because we're European people and we know what we are talking about. We have a lot of experience in this business and we are specific in different countries."
The question of business conducted between U.S and European markets comes out to be 50/50 according to Gramont. "But 100 percent of all our business is European," he says. "The revenues generated come from Europe. We used to have a dialer in the U.S. with AT&T, but you never know in this business - look at Worldcom today... we removed our numbers with Worldcom Belgium. Even if they claim they have nothing to do with Worldcom USA, we don't want to take any risk."
Indeed. After a "bad experience" with AT&T a year-and-a-half ago - Gramont says they didn't pay their bills - goodthinxx has ceased business dealings with the telecommunications outfit. "From this experience, we were shocked, because in Europe, everyone pays their bills," says Gramont. "If you don't pay your telephone bill in France, the police can take you to jail. The same in Germany."
Gramont says that until there is an alternative the big telecoms, goodthinxx will probably stay away from the U.S. market. This stance is further illustrated by Gramont's belief that the U.S. and European markets are, in fact, moving farther away from one another. According to Gramont, a popular brand (i.e. porn stars) in America doesn't always create the same influence in a very diverse Europe. Tera Patrick, for instance, is undoubtedly a big adult star in the U.S., but that same appeal cannot be assumed in places like Portugal, Norway, etc.
Says Gramont: "It's too big a difference for someone to come to Europe and say, 'I'm so-and-so, let's find five translator guys and turn it into French or Spanish' or whatever, but translate what? Jenna Jameson? She will always be Jenna Jameson, but in Spanish no one will know her, in Denmark nobody knows her, so it's too complicated. What we have seen is the opposite of the dream everybody had five years ago, that the Internet would be global, only one language for everyone. That is absolutely wrong."
Gramont notes that the percentage of English-speaking sites is diminishing. He says that in 1999, the vast majority of Websites were functioning with an English-speaking interface (basically, very American), but by 2005, he says, it will be only 45 percent of global sites that will be English-speaking in design. "It's decreasing every year. More German, more French, more Chinese, more Korean, more Russian, more Brazilian, and so on. The markets are getting less and less global."
This can be read, Gramont says, to mean that a precise, completely unambiguous content-to-city-to-individual mode of operation is, or will soon become, the model of which to achieve success. This method - known as IP address detection - is already being utilized for other purposes. In Gramont's model, for example, a surfer in Rome is detected. "Five years ago that interface would say, 'Welcome to Rome,'" he says. "A few months ago, the interface might have been streamlined to greet the surfer in Italian. Today, the interface is simplified even further by saying, also in Italian, 'Hey, you're in Rome. The cutest girls from Rome are here. Come check it out.'
"To get the customer you have to be more and more precise," says Gramont. "Really give them what they want. Give the guy the impression he can meet these girls where he lives." What can be construed is that there is a correlation between content and culture, this becoming more important as the globalization of the Internet continues.
Gramont figures that the Web community in America is much like Hollywood in that they will go on at the fore of the movie-making business, even though just because an actor or film is popular in America does not automatically mean equal success in Europe, which has its very own cadre of superstar actors, directors, and film style. For primarily economic reasons and the fact that the major studios who produce the most films reside in America, the U.S. continues to remain the leader in the movie business, but that does not indicate, just as is the case with the Internet, that the end product is necessarily more entertaining or vastly more important than what is being accomplished in other parts of the world.
Asked about similarities between Webmasters based in Europe and those in the U.S., Gramont concedes that the Europeans are not as organized - at least, not yet - which is why he is very enthusiastic about the EuroWebtainment industry trade show (www.eurowebtainment.com) set for October 25-27 in Berlin.
As the discussion shifts to dialers, Gramont is of the opinion that it is a tool that continues to adapt to change. Where it originally only worked with a modem, now the dialer has evolved to voice-call system, where a surfer without a modem can call a phone number and as long as the phone is off the hook, the surfer will be connected to the Website.
And with dialers comes the billing process, which again is a separate entity in Europe and America. "The market price is way too low in the U.S.," says Gramont. "I believe the market price is like twenty to thirty dollars per month, but in Europe, people are ready to surf. In Finland, for instance, they will surf for three dollars per minute."
The expansion of goodthinxx will, at this juncture, not include China. After making initial inroads, with connections to the Minister of Telecommunications, banks, advertisers, and others, the deal fell through due to what Gramont felt were shady financial undertones. "It will be very tough for people to make business in China," he says.
As for the current edition of goodthinxx, business is good in the land where the Habsburgs Empire once ruled. Gramont expects that in a year, his company's $4 million per month payout will grow to $6-7 million.
And for American Webmasters still vexed over international markets and all that valuable European traffic, help is on the way. "In the future, we'll benefit from the expertise we have in helping American Webmasters to convert international traffic, and we want to position ourselves this way," says Gramont.
"We see that the U.S. market is sitting, not moving anymore," he continues, "and the European market is getting bigger and bigger."
