Know what people really think on: 1World Online
1World Online is a Silicon Valley-based start-up providing an innovative social research service to help understanding what people really think on a variety of issues. Inside Investor spoke to CEO Alex Fedosseev about his idea.
By Kamran Saddique
Q: How did you come about 1World Online, and how was it formed?
A: There are two parts of the story. We were looking for the real opinion gap, problems people cannot solve. And we saw that there is no central platform to find out what people really think about various things or topics. We wanted to find out. Usually, people end up in Google or Wikipedia with their questions and try to make sense of links, but there is still a lack of quantifiable data to see how people react to the news. The second part was pretty simple. I already have been involved in three start-ups which all exited, and then I decided to come up with a content platform. I saw that there was no existing way of expressing what one thinks on the Internet, only surveys or posts out there. What we did was to collect questions and posts and then provide people with choices, supported by data points and expert opinions to get quality answers. That’s how the service was born.
Q: Who benefits from this?
A: There is a consumer benefit by learning, but companies like to know what people think and want to break down and process the data. What we see from our studies is that consumer behaviour is not so much determined by age or gender or other statistical factors, but by personality. We are opening a two-way street between consumers and companies.
Q: Should market researchers like Nielsen be worried?
A: Yes they should, and in a whole new way. There is a new world of social media, and people provide feedback instantly. There needs to be new instruments to measure this, and additional and multiple sources of data on top of the usual data collected. Results need to be made comparable to understand what people want.
Q: What have been your accomplishments so far?
A: We became partners of IBM and Microsoft in big data. We’ve got a really good traction here, and there are quite a few programmes running at the moment. We also have corporate customers that are using our services, for example Netgear and Greenwave, and content providers and multimedia magazines that want to maximise social traffic. We provide a dialogue, which is good for both consumers and for companies, and they like it because they can interact with their customers. Facebook and these things are today used by everybody, but the form of interaction is not always what companies want.
Q: Are there any plans to go out to other markets such as Asia?
A: We built out platform so that everyone can participate and thus we also want to provide languages other than English – we already started with Spanish. However, to expand to Asian countries, for example, we need to have a vocal team there that understands the interest and the certain topics of a region. But yes, we want to go there, it’s only a matter of timing and execution. I did similar things with my previous companies.
A: Where do you see your company in 2014?
Q: We are really growing, and I see more and more expert discussions from different countries happening on 1World Online. My ultimate vision, which might take up to three years to realise, would be that we become a fixed part of a popular and international social media platforms and provide detailed data on countries and people.
[caption id="attachment_15265" align="alignleft" width="166"] Alex Fedosseev, CEO and co-founder of 1World Online[/caption] 1World Online is a Silicon Valley-based start-up providing an innovative social research service to help understanding what people really think on a variety of issues. Inside Investor spoke to CEO Alex Fedosseev about his idea. By Kamran Saddique Q: How did you come about 1World Online, and how was it formed? A: There are two parts of the story. We were looking for the real opinion gap, problems people cannot solve. And we saw that there is no central platform to find out what people really think about various...
1World Online is a Silicon Valley-based start-up providing an innovative social research service to help understanding what people really think on a variety of issues. Inside Investor spoke to CEO Alex Fedosseev about his idea.
By Kamran Saddique
Q: How did you come about 1World Online, and how was it formed?
A: There are two parts of the story. We were looking for the real opinion gap, problems people cannot solve. And we saw that there is no central platform to find out what people really think about various things or topics. We wanted to find out. Usually, people end up in Google or Wikipedia with their questions and try to make sense of links, but there is still a lack of quantifiable data to see how people react to the news. The second part was pretty simple. I already have been involved in three start-ups which all exited, and then I decided to come up with a content platform. I saw that there was no existing way of expressing what one thinks on the Internet, only surveys or posts out there. What we did was to collect questions and posts and then provide people with choices, supported by data points and expert opinions to get quality answers. That’s how the service was born.
Q: Who benefits from this?
A: There is a consumer benefit by learning, but companies like to know what people think and want to break down and process the data. What we see from our studies is that consumer behaviour is not so much determined by age or gender or other statistical factors, but by personality. We are opening a two-way street between consumers and companies.
Q: Should market researchers like Nielsen be worried?
A: Yes they should, and in a whole new way. There is a new world of social media, and people provide feedback instantly. There needs to be new instruments to measure this, and additional and multiple sources of data on top of the usual data collected. Results need to be made comparable to understand what people want.
Q: What have been your accomplishments so far?
A: We became partners of IBM and Microsoft in big data. We’ve got a really good traction here, and there are quite a few programmes running at the moment. We also have corporate customers that are using our services, for example Netgear and Greenwave, and content providers and multimedia magazines that want to maximise social traffic. We provide a dialogue, which is good for both consumers and for companies, and they like it because they can interact with their customers. Facebook and these things are today used by everybody, but the form of interaction is not always what companies want.
Q: Are there any plans to go out to other markets such as Asia?
A: We built out platform so that everyone can participate and thus we also want to provide languages other than English – we already started with Spanish. However, to expand to Asian countries, for example, we need to have a vocal team there that understands the interest and the certain topics of a region. But yes, we want to go there, it’s only a matter of timing and execution. I did similar things with my previous companies.
A: Where do you see your company in 2014?
Q: We are really growing, and I see more and more expert discussions from different countries happening on 1World Online. My ultimate vision, which might take up to three years to realise, would be that we become a fixed part of a popular and international social media platforms and provide detailed data on countries and people.
