Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. It's guest time on the show and I'm very pleased to have with me Glenn Outerbridge, founder and CEO of eyeMe. Glenn, welcome to The BusinessMakers Show.

Glenn: Well thank you, Russ. I'm great to be here with you.

Russ: You bet. Well tell us about eyeMe.

Glenn: Well eyeMe is a new social media application that we're launching right here, starting with the iPhone and it allows you to do two great things; one, you can take any photo, add a voice comment to it and then share it in multiple ways. The second feature that we're coming up with that's pretty unique and is allowing you to take voice and then post it to Facebook or Twitter as your update or status or your tweet, rather than just typing it.

Russ: Cool. Really cool, so for clarification, eyeMe is spelled how?

Glenn: E-Y-E, uppercase M, lowercase E.

Russ: Okay. E-Y-E, uppercase M, E. eyeMe, social media. And nobody's doing this right now, right?

Glenn: No.

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: And we have patent pending petitions that are filed with actually 18 claims against the technology that we built into this application.

Russ: Wow, really cool, so I have my iPhone here. I can take a picture of you and after I take a picture with you, I could sit and record a message and then you're saying I could e-mail it or post it on Facebook, too or -

Glenn: Yes.

Russ: - Twitter?

Glenn: You can do that.

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: You can and in addition to adding the voice comment, you can actually put a text caption, actually type out or through Siri, speak the text caption that you want ____ to the phone. It would automatically put it to the photo and then post it to Facebook, post it to Twitter, share it within eyeMe, e-mail it to the individual, all of the above.

Russ: You pretty excited about this?

Glenn: Oh, I'm absolutely loving it.

Russ: I would be, too, if I were you. Okay, so this begs a few more questions. So I take a picture of you and I wanna talk about - how long a voice file can I record?

Glenn: Forty seconds.

Russ: Forty seconds, okay. Trying to see how I could use it in the show.

Glenn: Sure.

Russ: I could always do some short interviews with it.

Glenn: Absolutely.

Russ: Can you do video with it?

Glenn: We have the ability to do a video online but we are not doing it, yet -

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: - on, yeah.

Russ: Okay, wow, well that's pretty cool. So it seems like to me if you have an application like that and you're racing to the market, you are racing to the market.

Glenn: We are.

Russ: You can't go in slow motion, right?

Glenn: No. We are pushing the pedal right to the floor.

Russ: Okay, so I'm a user. How much does it cost me?

Glenn: Zero dollars.

Russ: Okay, that's hard to beat, yeah.

Glenn: Hard to beat, it's free.

Russ: I guess if you paid me, that would be better, but zero. So wow, so -

Glenn: It's a free app.

Russ: So is this a non-profit organization?

Glenn: Not at all -

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: - not at all. We have a free app that's out there. The market and the people around the world have been used to and accustomed to free apps.

Russ: Sure, absolutely.

Glenn: And that's kind of the path we're going down as well.

Russ: Absolutely.

Glenn: And we're going after the eyeball game.

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: Once we win the eyeballs, the marketing dollars, advertising, et cetera, will chip in there and more from a marketing spend, in 2010, there was $3.4 billion, I guess marketing spend. That's forecasted to be over $23.4 billion in 2016.

Russ: Well I -

Glenn: So tremendous upside.

Russ: I've seen some of those numbers myself and it's quite alluring for sure, so have you figured out, yet how you're gonna integrate advertising?

Glenn: Yes, we have a spot for it already on the application that's in there and once we get the secured eyeballs there, we'll have advertising and what we call location-based offers.

Russ: Location-based? That could be interesting as well but you're not gonna do like if I took a picture of you and then recorded. You know, "I'm sitting here with Glenn Outerbridge in a interview," at the end it's not gonna say, "Brought to you by Coca-Cola?

Glenn: Not at all.

Russ: That's an idea.

Glenn: But it might be but not at all.

Russ: Okay, so how did this idea develop? What triggered it?

Glenn: It developed out of a project we started through eyeMe that was actually Web-based and it's there, actually now -

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: - in beta at eyeme.us, www.eyeme.us.

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: It's an open beta and it started out with a feature in there that allowed you to create a multimedia book with voice, photos and text and video as well and then there's another feature that's called "My Life in Photos," where you can take photos from the time, say from you're a baby up until now and actually -

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: - analogue them with voice comments as well as text comments in there, so when it converts to a digital time show, you're looking at the photo but you're also hearing your voice -

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: - say, "This is me when I was a baby.

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: This is me when I graduate. This is me when I got married," et cetera. So it's your life in photos and I took that concept and said, "Wow, wouldn't that be a great app as a solo feature - and there it is.

Russ: Okay and so did you look around and make sure somebody wasn't doing it already?

Glenn: We looked.

Russ: Okay.

Glenn: We saw a few things, I guess in the recent months that were kind of emulating some other things.

Russ: Right.

Glenn: But they were actually videos. Nothing we've seen, nor have our patent search turned up what we're doing.

Russ: Wow, cool. So I guess, you know, the creativity is unlimited.

Glenn: Yes.

Russ: I mean, you could even offer, you know, you could have me say something and then convert my voice to Donald Duck, you know and -

Glenn: Absolutely.

Russ: Right. Well this is exci- so, what's the status of the product today?

Glenn: We are planning - and we're on schedule - to launch or submit the application to Apple for approval and placement in the App Store within the next two weeks.

Russ: Wow. So within two weeks, I should be able to go in and search for eyeMe in the App Store and find it right there and download it?

Glenn: It depends on Apple's queue.

Russ: All right.

Glenn: We're gonna be submitting it within a two-week period of time -

Russ: All right.

Glenn: So whatever the queue is with Apple, it'll be there and we'll let everyone know at that point.

Russ: That is real cool. Well one more question, too -

Glenn: Sure.

Russ: - I gotta know this. Besides being on The BusinessMakers Show, which I'm sure is gonna get you lots of users -

Glenn: Absolutely.

Russ: - how are you planning on trying to get the kinda volume that you need?

Glenn: We have some high-profile celebrity, you know, sports, as well as other celebrities that are going to be using the app and they have hundreds of thousands and some, millions of users through Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, and they're gonna be supporting and using and blessing it, and plus, we're gonna be working with the Houston Technology Center and the Houston general community to get the word out and get the buzz out.

Russ: Cool, cool, that's good. HTC can help you out a lot. So these athletes are not necessarily gonna come on television and do television commercials; they just have all these people that follow 'em and stuff and they're gonna start using' the app and boom, it's gonna go viral.

Glenn: Yeah, yeah and the cool thing of that they're seeing and experiencing is that they can not just type a message out to their followers -

Russ: Right.

Glenn: - but they're gonna be able to speak and say something, so they'll be able to hear.

Russ: Well those guys have huge fingers.

Glenn: Absolutely.

Russ: They can't type anyway. This is perfect for them.

Glenn: Yeah, so they're loving the concept and idea and I'm looking forward to it.

Russ: That is really cool. Well, I really appreciate you coming in and sharing that with us -

Glenn: Okay.

Russ: And I wanna follow you and see what happens.

Glenn: Great.

Russ: And load it as soon as I can.

Glenn: Well thank you for having me, Russ, I appreciate it. It's been great.

Russ: You, you bet. That's Glenn Outerbridge, the founder and CEO of eyeMe and this is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com.