Transcript: Blogtronix built white label "Channel 9" for enterprises

This transcript is from a PodTech.net podcast at:
http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1578/blogtronix-built-white-label-channel-9-for-enterprises

Guest: Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Host: Robert Scoble - ScobleShow

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Well, who are you first of all?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, my name is Vassil Mladjov, I am the founder and CEO of Blogtronix and we are going to be talking about Corporate and Enterprise blowing today.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Something like that. First, what's your background because you have an interesting accent? How do get...

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, I'm a Bulgarian, I moved to the States in 91 after I spent two years in the Bulgarian Air Force and I was dealing with actually anti-aircraft missiles, and artillery, and writing software. Before the service and everybody have to go in the service in Bulgaria. Essentially I was writing software since I was in middle school and that was a lot of fun. I think...

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
They had computers in Bulgaria?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
They had computers in Bulgaria.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
I'm showing you my American ignorance.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
No actually, my school is one of those unique schools, which was a small school but the father of one of my classmates is actually -- was working at a lab, which he had cloned to Apple II. So, we had cloned Apple computers and they started over there and then start mass producing them and soon enough a couple of years later the whole Eastern Europe had this clone Apple computers. And I started working on those back in mid 80's, early 80's and we started writing software and having fun and you had to write your own games, there was no games you can go and download of the Internet. So, you started very simple and you had to plot lines from one another and so in order to write a big text, it will take you five hours to plot the little dots. And somebody could go and just unplug the power and everybody is lost, everything was saved on tape.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Yeah.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Back later on we started having floppy discs and things like that, but these were the old good days.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Oh yeah. This is early 80's?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
This is early 80's.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Maybe four years behind Silicon Valley?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Few years behind Silicon Valley yeah so this is maybe 82-83 stuff like that. So, the first Apple was what 77? So, a few years after that, but it was fun and I got very excited; and this got me into working with computers, 20 some years later.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
I just interviewed Woz last week, the guy who came up with the Apple II.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Oh wow, yeah.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
And that was fun and -- in the crowd there was a lot of Apple II users so there's a lot love among the...

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Old, old school.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
It said that the Apple II is in old school.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
I actually found an Apple II on the streets of Berkeley and I picked it up and I like have it in my garage. I have this little collection of old cell phones, old computers, old pagers. So, I have an Apple II at home actually -- I don't know if it even works, but I don't care. It's...

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
So, how did you get into the Blogging world?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
The Blogging world.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
So, from 91 till now.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Believe it or not, in 94, 95; I should say when I started working here in the Stock Exchange. I started experimenting with different technology and one of the technology, I was experimenting with was Video Conferencing, Video Editing and stuff like that. So, then I started actually taking the video clips and emailing them to people, as video attachments. I almost got fired because the IT department came and I was part of the IT department, but my boss came and said you are going to crash the entire Stock Exchange during working hours. What are you talking about? What are you doing?

So, then I took that video and I said okay, I'm not going email it. Why don't I just put it in my web page? And back in 95 my web page was this grey greenish thing and I got actually a little Video Blog of myself getting a video camera I'm talking to it's like, "Hey, how you doing? This is Vassil and I am putting this video" and I put it on my web page. And then as time passed by I started building portals and web pages for other people. So, over the years, I had built a lot of portals with partners and friends of mine, I later on worked at a company called ITN, where we were building a lot of streaming for Akamai for Apple we were doing the live keynotes speeches for Steve Jobs. And through this whole experience we have to integrate video pictures, audio with a web page. So, in the end, I end up working as a CTO with AlwaysOn where we were doing basically blogging with social networking, but it wasn't really focused on enterprise. So, we really wanted to -- we wanted to build something that is enterprise focus, me and George -- you have met George, my partner.

So, we started from scratch building this new platform, which was suppose to change the world -- companies are communicating and collaborating and sharing information and knowledge. So, we built Blogtronix and that was -- we started working on this in the beginning of 2005 and year-and-a-half later, we have now a very robust platform from the word Blogtronix, which was essentially just at the beginning blogs. We've added Wiki's, we've added Document Management, we've added the Social Networking and it's a huge platform in fact we need to change the name probably because people are misled by thinking that Blogtronix there's only blogging.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Yeah, well it gives me a sense of why you thought you could compete with let's say, Movable Type or WordPress, which are both blogging platforms but are free and you guys charge obviously.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
We charge

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Anybody who uses the word enterprises, that's like a keyword in our industry for, we charge our Software.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Yes. So, there is a lot of good software out there that is free. WordPress is one of those; that is an excellent Blogging Software, that is free. Whoever -- I will make the announcement today that we will have a free version of Blogtronix. So, we will have a free version probably in next 30-45 days. And that will give the opportunity for small companies, or small groups to get up and running as soon as and as fast as they can.

So, this will have some limitations it's not going to have all the robust capability for the enterprise like, Single Sign-on, LDAP integration, the security that we offer many of the dashboards corporate compliance tools and it also be limited to small number of users. However, it will be a free version for people to download that from our Website. So we need to compete with those free platforms and show the people that you can have a free platform that is also very robust and easy-to-use and it's built on Microsoft .Net2.0.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Yeah, we're going to get to that in a minute.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Okay.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Because you didn't go with the Linux, which -- the other platforms have done with. Where was I got to go (Voice Overlap) Windows versus Linux, what are you trying to do? What kind of customer -- what is your system trying to do that the WordPress or the Movable Types down to?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, WordPress, Movable Type and few other systems out there are really a point product. They only deal with blogging. So, there are many systems out there that solve a specific problem, or offer specific functionality, some offer only blogging, some offer only Wiki, some offer only groups, some offer only Social Networking, some are just Document Management systems. One feature, or one technology cannot solve all the problems nor can one platform, but if you offer one suite of services and tools that are all integrated we believe that more people will be able to use it versus people that are just looking for PR, or marketing blogging or stuff like that. So, by integrating this we're creating more value for the company and essentially you don't have to have five, six, or ten separate software tools running on separate servers managing and with our platform we have one software that you need to manage, one set of settings and one group of users.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
What kind of company are you finding most interested in -- because you are really offering a turnkey solution that I buy one box put it in my Data Center, my rack of servers in the middle of the room, or something. And also everybody in my company has the ability to do blogging and Wikiing and (Voice Overlap) all that fun stuff. You're basically doing sort of what Channel 9 did at Microsoft, right? (Inaudible) So, I don't have to hire a couple of really cool developers, I just buy a box put it in and I have Channel 9.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, first of all we started offering the Blogtronix Platform as -- software as a service on demand. Then we started offering on top of that an appliance and now as from the end of August we actually offer software as well. So, we give you different ways to deliver a platform to our customers. Why are we doing this? First of all we definitely have a similar platform to what you guys built custom inside Channel 9, which was built on another (Inaudible) to have to deal a lot of customization. So, our platform is very close to what you guys have, but it is different in a sense that you have the ability to customize it very simple, very quickly and ability to create multiple subgroups or additional workgroups on the fly.

Everyone of those workgroups is a separate community that you can then use for collaboration and communication with your clients, with your partners, with your developers, with your employees. They could be open communities close secure communities. And then all of those are integrated into individual user profiles. --Now, you also asked who is using at that and who is interested in this?

So, we are seeing a variety of companies talking to us, there's a huge interest from educational institutions. We're right now working with several large universities in United States that are looking to deploy and are deploying our platform and essentially to have the ability of every student to have there own blog, every department between the schools to have a community of -- where the students are collaborating and communicating internally; and sharing information, and then they can actually put ads and make money and offset their cost. So, it's very interesting, we're also working with government...

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
What do you charge by the way? Is there one fee, I buy $10,000 a server, or do I pay per user or?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
It's really -- the way we charge right now is recurring monthly revenue based on users, so it's perceived. And this is if you're internal facing users; if you're external facing we actually are charging page views. So, it could be a small company of 25 people, but giving five million page views we are just going to charge you based on the page views. And it scales, it starts at $20 per user and goes down to $5 per user per month if you're 10,000 people company.

So, other than education we're working with some very large media companies that will create social networking for their users. We're working with several financial companies, very large financial companies here as well as in Europe. We're working with few Hi-Tech Companies and we're working pretty much with any kind of company that needs collaboration and communication and that is realized that existing email and legacy portals are not doing a very good job of today's world.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
That number is certainly growing, but it still is a small number right now, I know I've been through my book and through my speeches trying to evangelize blogging as a way that companies can talk both internally and externally and it's a slow road, isn't it? Because a lot of people don't like to change and companies particularly don't like to change the way that they communicate, or when they do they do it very slowly and with a lot of thought, right?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
There is a cultural change that needs to happen because people are definitely still used to using email and Blackberries and Internal Corporate Departments still like to dictate the messages inside the company as well as outside the company. However, companies like Microsoft where you came from, companies like Sun, and Boeing, and GE have realized that they need to open up. If you open up and get the conversation not only internally among them please, but also get a faster feedback from your customers, and partners, and investors. You're affecting the value chain management of the company.

So, then if I know and I was Michael Dell and I had a Blog when two years ago when there was all those problems with the Dell Batteries. Dell would have been able to -- through a simple RSS feed know about a problem with there Batteries, way before it bubbled and exploded. So, they would have been able to create a faster innovational loop and fix the problem much sooner. So, it's all about communication and collaboration, but you got to find a specific problem to work on and you got to realize it that you have that problem in the first place.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Yeah, I might sometimes saw them go through this progression where they had a few blogs at first and then a lot more as things started to heat up. And when it became a lot more I think it changed from being just a PR tool to being a one where they were having customer -- conversations with customers and actually improving the product. And when a company does that then that they've at least going fine enough down the road to never go back.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
I mean many companies are starting with PR marketing useful blogs, which is fine. It's a great technology to use for PR marketing. If you type right now in Google, or Microsoft Securing Enterprise Blogging or Secure Corporate Blogging, you'll see Blogtronix shown up number one. We haven't paid for any advertising inside Google, but the Search Engines just love this.

You need to start somewhere, once you start with this then others between the companies are saying, "Well wait a minute. Why do I need to email the whole company when I can just post one blog post. And then everybody can just go and read it and then give me some feedback?" That way you are not clogging the email system, you're not spamming people and everybody even the people that you may have forgotten utilize to a contact via email will have the ability to read and comment and interact with you. And that is valid both internally and externally with your clients and partners and investors.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Yeah, how important is Video to what you're doing? Because you started out as blog tool, but I know you're playing with the Video and podcasting, as well, right?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, video if you look at in all the old saying that a picture is worth of thousand words, I think video is even more important. You can get a phone like this that has a 2 pixel camera and full video capabilities. Take up a five minute video interview or just look at yourself and get a little video clip and then upload it directly from your phone into your blogging platform. Why is that important because you're actually showing a little bit more personality? You're seeing who you're talking to a little picture of the person next to the blog is very important, but I think the next communication medium will be definitely be video and this is where communications are going. This is where Cisco is putting a lot of money and pushing video communications. This is where...

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
We're going to have a big announcement next Monday by the time this video gets out and going to be out there.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, Video and Video Communication will start an enterprise and it will also then through PR other videos will start bubbling outside and then everybody will have just like in my laptop I have a webcam on top of it and I can actually do video blogs right from laptop. So, it's very, very important and it's very important to combine videos and Podcast and text. You can't -- one medium doesn't solve all of your problems and there's people that maybe blind, well video doesn't work for them, but podcast makes sense for them. So, you always have to look at your audience.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Yeah, video tapes -- watching this video interview is going to take a commitment of sometime.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
To create, develop, and help (Voice Overlap).

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Well, just to watch it.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Yeah, just to watch it.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
And that's not quiet easy for a lot of people, a lot of people want to search through their RSS readers and go bang-bang and get today's news and move back to that work.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, if you guys are actually then getting index of the audio file and putting it right below as a transcript.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
No, yeah.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
We need to talk about that.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
I'm working on it. Do you guys help with that?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
We have partners so first of all Blogtronix doesn't solve all of your problems and we have partners around search capabilities, around media, around the video production and we're definitely starting to work with you guys, around Document Management. Even though we have some Document Management we're not that experts in that so we're partnering with bigger companies like we're working, starting to work with people like, Microsoft Documentum and others to provide them much bigger and scalable solutions and we'll be just the interface on top of it.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Now, do you integrate into some of the Enterprises Search Engines very well or do you work -- explain are you partnering with them or are you just sharing your stuff so that they can find -- so they could spider your internet Web Blogs, or whatever?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
We're working with -- we're starting to work with some of the bigger enterprise search engines and we have first of all our own Search Engine, which is pretty good but it's only it has limited capabilities when it gets into indexing documents internally, the audio or the video files itself. So, for this we're creating partnerships and then we can just plug in the search engine of somebody else and as well as we work with again an enterprise, you need to have your staff indexed properly. So, we need to work with third party Search Engines like Google and FAST and others to provide that the better integration on that level. Plus LDAP, real time LDAP authentication (ph) for single sign on security permissions and stuff like that.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Interesting. Do to do what else trying to now about, what you do? Why bet on a small company? Why can't SharePoint for Microsoft, or some other big, big company platform to do what you do, and why should a CTO, Procter & Gamble, or some big company trust you, or because Blogtronix is probably a company they've never heard of?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
They never heard of, until now.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Hopefully until now, you never know.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
No actually we -- definitely people have heard of us. Why would people bet on us? First of all there are big companies that are doing similar things we're doing including IBM, just announced that their (Inaudible) is doing blogs. And then I said, "Well, let me see what exactly they're doing", so I went in their Website and started reading and watching all the pictures and stuff that they have. And I must say I got confused. So, big companies like IBM and others try to do a catch up.

Theirs is no innovation the same way where you can innovate with a small company that has very big focus on what they're doing like us. Blogtronix has a focus on creating a new Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tool. So, we started from the ground up to build this. IBM, Microsoft and others are doing catch up by trying to build additional functionalities into their platforms to mimic what essentially blogs and Wikis are supposed to be. Some are doing better job than others. However, if you look in the end, what for example, SharePoint 2007 is. Yes, it has the capabilities for Wiki...

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Which isn't out yet, right?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Which is still a beta, it does have Wiki's and blogs however in order to have the functionality that Blogtronix has, under one small file, which fits in my phone actually. You need to have several separate servers running you need to have 2003 SP 2 configuration and you need to have very technical people running at. So, you need to be a network happen efficient in Microsoft technology in order to run this. With our system you don't need to know any of this, you just need to how to use a browser everything is web based administration it's one file one application that allows you to have blogs, Wiki, social networking, Document Management it's all integrated, much easier to set up, manage, lower cost of ownership and operation. So, the big companies definitely need to talk to us because our platform is more efficient it's definitely easier to use and more innovative.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
And you probably support some more of the blogging things like, trackbacks and pings...

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Absolutely.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Do you ping like Weblogs.com and Technorati?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Yes, you can actually...

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Because, SharePoint doesn't do that if I remember my interview with them.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
With our system you can set up as many Ping Servers as you want you can have RSS feeds, you can get the email notification, you can have five levels of user rights and then you can actually go and customize what those user rights are, down to the little bitty dot of who has the right to read something to rate things to put track backs, to put comments to read comments, etcetera. I was just going to say something now that was important.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
I know how that works...

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Just too much though. Neither Microsoft nor IBM have the capability to operate on their Macintosh environment on their Safari. Our Platform is one of the few platforms that works under Safari, our editor at full scale media WIZIWIK Editor, which allows you to add a QuickTime Podcast, a Windows Media, Flash with one click of the button, to have spell check to have all the picture insertion, you can actually just drag the stuff from another web page into the editor. No other editor does this. And Microsoft and IBM are no where near capable of doing that. In big Companies, Government Agencies, and Universities are definitely still a big, big user -- when it comes to Macintosh and Safari. It's actually in some companies, we're talking to they have over 50% of their users on Safari and that's the standard for their enterprise and because of this, SharePoint 2007 is out of the competition entirely.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Wow! Why did you choose Windows as a platform, and .NET?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
And .Net -- but why be on a bleeding edge?

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
It is (Voice Overlap) instead of Linux, because you've given Microsoft 1000 bucks or...

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
No actually, we're not giving Microsoft that much. So, ours Platform is built on .NET 2.0. However it works on IIS and it works now with Microsoft SQL Express. So, we don't have to, or our users don't have to buy an expensive SQL Database. We don't have to do it either. So, there were several reasons, first of all our development team in Bulgaria, which I must say is probably the best development team you can find, that has a lot of knowledge around collaboration and communication, social networking portals was already in place and they were .NET Developers.

So, for us to go and try to re-invent the wheel and try to take (Inaudible) and reengineer it and believe me, we tried, was not the right move. If you look at medium to large businesses many of them are running around, Microsoft infrastructure, and if you look again the productivity tools out there in a workplace, are Microsoft Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer and those are the standards. So, for us it was no-brainer that we need to work around the technology and the tools that are already in use by the regular, or I should say, average business user.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Interesting, sounds interesting.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Yeah, it is very interesting.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Sounds like, a fun business and I hope to use it for some of my own projects, because I've lot of companies asking me, how do you do a Channel 9? How much customization -- when I get a Box and I put it in my rack and I turn it on, how customization do I need to do to make it look like a PodTech, or a Procter & Gamble or the (Voice Overlap).

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, Blogtronix Platform is a white label Social Networking Communication Portal. So, all we need to do is just to upload your Logo choose one of, the 30 or so themes that we have -- templates, decide where you want two, three or whatever columns and how you want it to look and feel. That you can do literally between two minutes and be done and your Community Portal now is going to be able to run it. So, its very, very simple, plus you can choose then, what modules should be part of your -- on your portal, what module should be on the left, what module should be on the right, what module should be behind other modules and the whole customization is very, very simple. You don't need to know any HTML to do it, or 'C', or any kind of programming language to customize it. You don't even have to call us; it's all self-training video tutorials that allow you to do that.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Okay, so, even an idiot like me can do it?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Even an idiot like you can do it.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
You just call me an idiot.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
No, you're not an idiot.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
I am looking for easy to use software too. What about Comment Spam and all that stuff that bloggers have to deal with, and I am sure corporations have to be -- moderation of comments, especially for corporations they are really freaked about, some guy posting a racist comment, or getting all this Comments Spam because...

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, Corporate Compliance is extremely important to us, we built it from the beginning. So, we started first of all, we have filters, Corporate Compliance Filters that would scan everything you want to post. So, if you trying to post a comment or a new post and you have a bad word, or you try to talk any kind of word that is in our forbidden list, we're not going to allow you do that first of all. Then we have approval process, so any comment, any blog post, needs to be approved by the moderator, or somebody with higher user rights, before it's posted on a website. And then if somebody puts comments on this, or even put track backs, we can notify the administrator and then the administrator can just go on a blog, they don't even have to go on a backend and they can come and see it at right on a FrontPage will notify users when there is Spam, when there is something not supposed to be there and you can either edit, delete it, or disapprove it, it's very simple.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Very cool; and how scalable is this? Let's say, I get on the front cover of Digg, or a Slashdot, or even better on the front page of MSNBC, or something like that, how many users can this deal with and how much have you tested it?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So, the system is extremely scalable for several reasons. First of all, it does run on IIS and then you can get multiple servers running in a Grid or balance; you can then put cache on top of it. However, the biggest scalability is our partnerships with Akamai, which then allows us to cache a specific side and have it on 18,000 servers around the world. So, companies like Yahoo!, companies like Amazon and Microsoft...

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
And even little company like PodTech.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
...even like little companies like PodTech will be able to use scalability of Akamai and their content delivery, network around the world; not just for the hard content in terms of text, but also for all the videos and Podcast in the background and you can deliver to millions of users around the world, simultaneously.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Yeah that's a pretty convenient because -- that's why we went with Akamai because they're all over the place, say lets some kid in China can get a video just as well as some kid in Silicon Valley.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
As long as, the Big Wall of China doesn't block the content.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Yeah, so far I haven't seen anything yet...

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
So far so good.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
...anything, bad that got to censors.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
We now the life in the Communist World is, that's why moved here for a better life.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Is that why you came here?

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Yeah. When you think about it, this is where the cutting-edge is, this is where Apple II Computer was created.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
You didn't want to be five years behind that.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
I didn't want to five years behind that, I was always a little head, so I needed to move to a place, where I can actually get my own dream go on, sure.

Robert Scoble -- ScobleShow
Well, thank you for sharing it with us.

Vassil Mladjov - Blogtronix
Thank you.