RP software startup ventures into storytelling ala-web 2.0
By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 14:10:00 05/30/2008
MAKATI CITY, Philippines -- After several failed attempts to create a compelling social networking service in the past, a co-founder of a Philippines-based software startup is finally attracting several local investors to bet on a relatively new idea: a real-time, collaborative storytelling social service.
Calling it "storytelling on steroids," Syndeo Media CEO and co-founder Luis Buenaventura has started alpha testing of Octales, inviting friends to evaluate the service.
This idea, which was born six weeks ago, was pitched during Morph Code, an event organized by Cebu-based software startup Morph Labs.
Buenaventura is no stranger to social networks, as he pointed out that he has been involved in creating social software for other clients. His company is also involved in search engine optimization services.
A University of the Philippines fine arts student, Buenaventura has been developing several social software, including highfiber.org, his first; gibbity.com, a gaming social network; , oks.ph, a Filpino-version of Digg; and Filmcrowd.com, a social network for movie buffs. Most of these efforts proved to be failures, he admitted.
Octales is a recent idea that he and his company of less than 20 people created, and they hope to get funding from Morph Labs. Morph Labs, which announced plans to go public and list in the Philippine Stock Exchange, is bank rolling local ideas of software startups.
Octales is similar to existing services like Protagonize.com or Webook.com, the young executive said. However, Octales is different since subscribers to the service can collaborate on a certain story in real-time. Users can, for instance, set the parameters on how many words people can add to a running story. Stories can also expire after a few days, depending on how long a user wants to get inputs from other subscribers.
Buenaventura said Octales hopes to differentiate itself because it is more interactive than rival social networking services.
"The underlying theme in social software is digitizing social behavior of people," he said. "Octales is not a unique idea. But this is execution [of the idea]."
Buenaventura said that Octales hopes to generate revenues from merchandising some of the stories that will be created by users.
He admits, however, that social networking services or social software is about generating revenues indirectly from other services wrapped around it.
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