Interview w/ SN CEO Peter Pezaris of Multiply.com

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Multiply.com CEO, Peter Pezaris, about Multiply and his opinions about the hot social networking scene. Peter founded SN site Multply.com back in November 2003, and launched their first version of the site in March 2004. At the time of our conversation Multiply’s user base had just passed 2.4 million members with 2.5 million close in their site. While I wasn’t able to obtain any specifics regarding their growth rate, Peter did say that it took them a quarter of the time to go from 1 million to 2 million users then it did to gain their first million.

Q. “What do you feel makes Multiply different from all of the other SN, especially Myspace and Facebook?”

Peter explained to me that they saw three points of differentiation. The first, was the focus of being able to publish social content (i.e. pictures, videos, blog entries, etc.) to your network. Other sites like Myspace and Facebook “are black and white. Your content is either public or private” Peter said. On Multiply your content is only available to your friends, and friends of friends.

Second, Multiply has dedicated much of its focus to communication within your network. This includes their new AJAX live commenting feature, that will update the page with new comments as they come in without having to hit the refresh button.

Third, Multiply’s target market are “regular people, who live regular lives” Peter said. Peter stated that professional photographers go to Flickr, people who love shooting videos will go to YouTube, and writers will use Blogger. But what about the average Joe who likes to do a little of each and wants to share it with their family and friends? Do they want to go to three separate sites? Peter says no, and that is the type of person Multiply was made for.

Q. “Do you think Myspace will remain king? For how long?”

Peter thinks it is hard to imagine that Myspace will remain top dog. “The question becomes what will they morph into? If they don’t change, they won’t last beyond a year as king of the hill…Myspace has a nightclub atmosphere. Like a nightclub, it only stays cool for so long.” Peter believes, and I agree, that the functionality that Myspace offers is much less engaging then a lot of sites. He pointed out that we have already seen an example of this with Friendster.

Q. “What do you think the impact of all of these smaller, niche, social networks will be on the big players?”

“Minimal,” says Peter. He remembers soon after Friendster launched, a SN site called Dogster for people who love dogs launched, and then soon after that a site called Hamsterter. Obviously those didn’t last long. . “On a specific subject everyone will go to an open community such as a forum. On Multiply the topic is you. Multiply becomes a reflection of your life.”

Q. “What are Multiply’s goals for the future?”

Multiply has a very grand vision to “no less then change the way people communicate.” Peter explained that every form of communication vehicle fosters a different type of communication. “We talk about different things in writing then we do in a fax or on the phone.” Multiply wants to allow a person to communicate with their network in a way they have never been able to before. “Group discussions are tough online,” and Multiply wants to change that.

Q. “Where do you see the future of social networking going? How does Multiply fit in with that picture?”

Peter believes Multiply is the future of social networking. “Everything is trending towards our goals.” Peter thinks that media sharing among our social networks is becoming more evident and “Multiply is the best platform to do that…None of the existing players are going to be able to do what we are doing with that type of content sharing.”

Tomorrow I will write about my take on Multiply.com, so stay tuned.

[tags]Social Networking, Multiply, Multiply.com, Peter Pazaris, Interview, Myspace, Facebook, Brian Balfour[/tags]