The coffee shops of Mayfair

On Qype, The Southampton Echo, a dodgy swimming pool (or Regional newspapers, business models and Qype)

I make a conscious effort to never write adverts for portfolio companies, but bear with me on this one.

A few weeks ago I wrote a long review on Qype* for a swimming pool in Southampton (read it here and in news paper form here ).  I was so delighted with the review (and so angered by the crappy swimming pool) that I decided to cut and paste the review into a letter to the editor of the local rag, the Southampton Evening Echo. 

I am stunned to say that last week it was published as the star letter on the highest circulation day for the paper (ah me, I have finally hit the big time).  

Why am I telling you this? 

Because it’s a perfect illustration of how traditional business models are under attack by something they can’t defend.  Look at the quite stunning evidence here  and here.

The Daily Echo loved the Qype product so much they (unwittingly) reproduced a review straight from its pages.

Qype has loads of great content. My review was a rambling monologue against local government masquerading as a swimming pool review, but Qype is packed full of really well written, relevant and trusted content.  Stuff that regional press love.   The Southampton Echo loved it so much they took it lock stock onto their old fashioned news paper.

Just imagine how much US regional press would love to have ads from craigslist.

Just imagine how much Yell.com would love to cultivate a community of users as loyal or innovative as Qype or some of its competitors.

This begs one of the most annoying questions from VCs: “if this is such a threat to local news papers**, why aren’t they just doing it themselves?

And there’s the answer right there.  They could.  But they don’t.  And that’s why there’ll always be great opportunities for smart entrepreneurs.

One other reason for wanting to write about Qype is it’s an excuse. For not writing here much recently. For me, Qype is the new blogging.  I am stunned (and slightly embarrassed) that I derive so much self satisfaction from spouting off opinions on things from croissants at The Wolseley to the local plumber.  But writing reviews has got me hooked.

*Qype is a portfolio company of Advent Ventures.
**of course you can interchange this with MySQL & Oracle, Bebo & AOL, BT & Skype etc. etc.

Reevoo is a trust filter for the web

Reevoo today announces a $5mn Series A fundraising* from Eden Ventures and a raft of experience angels. There have been a few questions about what is this investment  is all about.

 
Let me give a view.

 
A massive problem with the web is knowing who and what to trust. Not only because of the growth of dodgy review sites and spoof blogs / affiliates but also because “kosher” ecommerce sites themselves want to increase the levels of trust consumers place in them. They have worked out that higher online trust = higher online conversion.

Reevoo is solving this problem with a two pronged attack;

 
1) The ReevooMark product is a service to collect reviews from retailer’s customers who have already bought goods. ReevooMark aggregates these reviews around products and serves these reviews back to the retailers sites. (see Dixons , Currys , Jessops etc ).

 
2)Reevoo.com, which is still very much in Beta, also provides a destination for consumers to read these reviews to help choose what to buy. Price comparison engines were the first generation in helping consumer WHERE to buy.

Reevoo provides a trust filter to help consumers work out WHAT to buy.

I have blogged before about how much value there is in delivering what the consumer wants without them having to ask for it. For me this remains an area of white space on the web and one where VCs have been making their bets this year. Last.fm does exactly the same thing for music.

The other exciting thing is that if Reevoo can dominate the part of the purchase process that focuses on WHAT to buy rather than where to buy it will become an enormously powerful platform for shaping purchase decisions.  Ben Tompkins is the General Partner at Eden Ventures who I negotiated the
Reevoo investment with. In his previously life at Broadview Ben was the guy who sold Kelkoo to Yahoo  for €475 million. Ben understands what the value an investment in a second generation site like Reevoo could yield.

 
*First Capital advised Reevoo on this fundraising.