Graspr sees learning as a social process

The end game is about helping monetize knowledge-based services

In part two of this two-part interview Graspr founder and CEO Teresa Phillips discusses how Graspr differentiates itself from other How-to sites and their recent Glam Media syndication deal. Graspr joined as a video content provider for their 700+ Sites in the Glam Media Publisher Network. Graspr is the first instructional video site to launch a syndicated platform and online video editor, designed to help instructional video producers easily edit, promote, track and distribute and market their videos, as well as share in the advertising dollars that are generated around those videos. Graspr also launched its affiliate network with rewards referrals from producers and publishers within the Graspr network with a lifetime share in revenues generated around the video content they feature or produce.

LK: What differentiates Graspr from the competition? What's your value proposition for the producers, for the distribution networks, advertisers and viewers?

TP: Our direct competitors are the How-to video sites (Howcast, 5min, eHow, WonderHowTo, ExpertVillage, Videojug) and there's a number of different dimensions that we differentiate Graspr. One of them is how we source content. Whether you produce content in house or source it through your users. Videojug, Howcast and Expert Village to a large degree produce their content in house. You're familiar with that model, while you have high quality content and you can templatize there's still the vertical increase in acquisition costs when you're talking about production fees. They have two challenges that we don't have. One of them is operational costs in terms of production costs and scalability and the second one is, what I call perspective or context. So because they content production costs they can't have 25 videos on how to write a resume but I can. They check a box and move on. The nice thing about learning is that we learn from other people and we learn from people we whom we can relate to. Whether it's socially or demographically, or something we have in common, or the teaching style. What we find is that learners appreciate that we have a broad mix of teachers and experts and they can always find someone they can relate to and better learn from. So that's how we differentiate ourselves from the competition. 5min also sources content from its users but the big differentiators there is that we filter our content.

Like I said, we accept 30-40% of content and it's appropriate for all audiences of all ages. Regarding SEO and SEM, if you look at some of the analytic sites and look at the top key words that are driving traffic to some of those sites, you won't find those keywords on Grapsr. That's from a content perspective, but even further we are different from our syndication strategy and our commerce model and really our relationship with these experts. So none of these sites have real people behind them, these are just content repositories and they different strategies in terms of distribution. I love markets where there's competition because it validates the space and we've got a lot of great competitors who are doing great things and we're all trying to help make this market bigger. We believe that the end game is about helping monetize knowledge-based services.

So for me, this isn't just about how-to content which is most of our competitors have only How-to content. If you look at the big vision of Graspr and take a step back and look at what's going on in the world in that 79% of the U.S. GDP is fueled by services and 62% worldwide and half of all workers are "Knowledge workers", meaning people get hired for what they know as opposed of their ability to perform manual labor and we all know these guys. Whether they are our teacher, our kids piano instructor, golf instructor, veterinarian, we all know them. Now imagine if these knowledge workers everywhere could extend their services beyond their local neighborhoods to the world and with Graspr they can do that. The other piece is that it's about the products backing up the services.

My first goal is to unleash experiential knowledge and we chose video as the medium for its high impact value. The impact of the medium is amazing in terms of motion, emotion and connectedness and learning. And so the first goal is to give people the tools and education to help them tell their story, to help unleash this experiential know-how and help them package it in a form that can be easily consumed. The second thing really is to build a product business around it because these experts have developed affinity toward branded products. So if you listen to our videos we did this random sample and about 60% or so of our videos the producers were recommending products and brands within the video. For example, one of our producers Mark Donovan says, "When you're doing drywall use Sherman Williams paint. It goes on easy, it doesn't fade, etc..." So when the learner is learning how to hang drywall they don't hear just how to do it they also hear, "Go buy Sherman Williams paint."

LK: So the product placement is baked right into the video.

TP: Totally, it's part of the message. It's the whole nirvana of broadcast video which is product placement. Tie those brands as close as you can to the plot of the story and products are at he heart and soul of learning and doing. So what we're doing in terms of algorithm from a product perspective is we're deciphering and we're going to be mapping these products to what these producers are recommending within their videos and creating a commerce model around it.

LK: How do you see this new syndication through Glam? How did it start, where do you see it going and how will it benefit your producers and the Grapsr community?

TP: Glam has a TV section, video section and they primarily source professional content. They don't accept UGC, they like branded content. And what they liked about Grapsr is that it really enables them to obtain what I call "indie artists" so it's high quality content from people who are trying to create a business and care about the quality of their video and message, without having to accept user generated content. So with our kind of producers it was just a nice fit. It was something that Glam did not have. They did not access to these real people. Because if you think about it their publisher network is mostly long tail content, small mom and pop businesses, and so they don't want content that's overcooked or with mass appeal and they having the content from real people. So that's what we bring to the table; real people, real stories without the compromise in quality.

LK: It seems like a good fit in that helps them extend their existing brands into the video space.

TP: Absolutely, and it's content that they can still think about advertising against. There are different types of syndication and distribution deals and levels. Sometimes you do deals for brand awareness and reach other times you do deals for longer term strategic relationships or even for monetization. This for us is about reach and brand. Glam is redistributing our videos and our producers have the opportunity to get in front of their extended global network in these communities that have really targeted audiences where there's a lot of conversation and discussion going on which his exactly what are producers are trying to do.