Tatango, the Seattle, WA-based easy-to-use group text messaging platform has introduced version 2.0 of the product. The biggest change in 2.0 of Tatango is a redesign, as well as a new set of features and updates to the product and a new business model.
In a blog post, Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing, explains some of the new features; specifically noting a new billing system, improved site performance, increased messaging speeds and overhaul of the Tatango website.
Notably, with the new version of Tatango is a new business model. Tatango has eliminated free ad-supported accounts, and moved to a pay-only model, offering a free 30-day trial option.
Founder and CEO Derek Johnson explained that while he still believes there is a future for SMS-based advertising, the wide array of groups using Tatango made it extremely difficult to find appropriate and targeted ads, creating difficulties in monetizing their message traffic.
Although Tatango didn’t disclose the number of messages sent, Johnson says they are on track for profitability by the end of 2009. Tatango has raised upwards of $500,000 since it was founded in October 2007. Tatango opened up their platform to the public in September 2008.
Daniel!!!!!!
Adam!!!!!
Thanks man. I needed that. Oh and um what an interesting site. very good stuff. but what about the business model?
Haha. sorry.
Now that the bromance is over (btw, Daniel, thanks for the t-shirt, and hi Adam), I am curious about the end of the free option, it sounds to me like a lack of advertisers.
Derek is a smart guy, he’ll handle it, but it is rare to see a fully paid option apart from 37Signals and CrazyEgg. Good luck team Tatango.
Bromance? You feel left out? Join in man. There’s enough bromance to go around.
These guys are headed to the deadpool. No sane investor would give more money to guys who spend their seed round on crap like tatango.tv and egotistical PR photshoots for the founder. On track to profitability my a**. Check out their wikipedia page history if you want to see the extent of their narcissism.
To make money in the space you need to be able to better target ads or get enterprise accounts. I give them less than a year; no chance people will pay them in any meaningful numbers.
EpicFail, I have to agree with you. I have been watching Tatango since day 1 and surprised that they are still around especially with a lot of immature and bad decision they have made so far. Especially when existence of many large, previously success sites are questionable, these guys may not even survive for another 4 months. More VC money down the drain.
What’s funny is I’ve been hearing that we will be going to the deadpool for the last two years. What’s also funny is that you criticize us for stepping outside of the box in regards to our marketing. Yes, some of our marketing efforts were a little over the top or didn’t work, but one thing we most certainly didn’t do is waste our investor money. Have you even read my blog about this subject? http://bit.ly/3loyr)
Who calls themselves ‘the’
Just because you are alive doesn’t mean you aren’t in the deadpool; it just means your detractors had good early insight. You’ve been working for 2 years and haven’t figured it out–that alone isn’t bad (admirable persistence and of course you could eventually make it work), but it doesn’t mean your succeeding.
And I just read your blog about the costs of your campaigns. It really shows your immaturity and narcissism–you really don’t get why people think you’re an arrogant prick do you? You say you didn’t waste money because the stuff you bought was cheap, but you ignored the cost of time, which is the biggest expense in any tech startup. Just cause your basketball hoop was $20 it doesn’t mean you didn’t waste a massive amount of investor money by putting your time and effort into useless junk to stroke your ego.
Come on… a basketball hoop to “stroke my ego”, is that a joke? What is a joke is commenters like you saying stuff behind a cloak of anonymity on blogs such as this one. At the very least, if you are going to bash my company and I, put some weight behind your words.
Would be interesting if Twitter could provide something similar where you can create a group.
Twitter should just buy Tatango.
Or just recreate it in about 3 days…it would take a decent engineer little time to do this
Rails Rumble ‘10 is just around the corner, I expect to see your entry then.
We’re big fans of Tatango and have enjoyed using their service.
Getting to know Derek, Andrew, Adrian and team has been a pleasure and we’ve found their tools and customer focus to be top notch.
Doubt their headed for an epic fail, it’s good to see what you’re doing, evaluate, learn and refocus – GO TEAM TATANGO!!!
Congrats Derek… You guys will do well. Keep crushing it
The change in business model happened sometime back and if you ask me this change was going to happen anyway. Startups cannot monetize with SMS Ads. Read the analysis and why here – http://wp.me/pw0hs-3x
With the incredible advances in cell options, is this “service” even necessary? I can already blast-SMS on my AT&T system, and my friends who use T-Mobile report the same. Not sure why I’d need a separate system.
Aside from the fact that this startup is focused on providing a solution that is already widely available, the “C-level” is manned by college dropouts. While that’s “cool” for 24-year olds, I wonder if they’ve ever heard of the Peter Principle? While Bill Gates did drop out of college, he dropped out of HARVARD..and Derek Johnson is no Bill Gates. Is there anyone seriously betting that Tatango will ever amount to much if they continue being led by a bunch of college dropout buddies?
You are completely correct, most people don’t need our service with the advances in mobile phone technology. To give you a little insight, the average group on Tatango is between 30 and 70 members with some groups having thousands of members. Well I can manage and message a group of friends on my iPhone, it gets pretty cumbersome when talking about the group sizes that we service. Obviously I could message a thousand person group on my iPhone, but what Tatango is offering is a more simple way and people are willing to pay for that.
In regards to your comment about our C-level management team, you are completely correct, we didn’t graduate from Harvard and I’m not Bill Gates. Not sure the point you are trying to stress here, but in my opinion you don’t need an ivy league degree to run a startup.
Anyone who wishes a negative future on a group of intelligent young men is ridiculous. What, Derek has taken a chance starting up a company (or two…or three)? What, no Harvard degree? What, he’s successful and you’d hate to see it last? Maybe you need to figure out why you are so bitter, and angry, and realize that the success of Tatango will not ruin your life. Unless you let it.
Bugger off.
I’m still thinking about Tatango for my youth group. It seems to be a solid service and the bugs I had were addressed quickly. I am most surprised at the level of service they provide–my only concern is that they’ll burn out, but they seem to be having a good time, and if work and play and life all intersect nicely, then they’ll continue to do great.
My only holdback is cost–I spend money that was given to the church to steward well. I want to honor God and His people the way I spend His money. I want to be an excellent steward of gifts, and I think this is the way for us to go. It is too much effort to construct a zillion little 10-person groups in my cell phone to send a bulk message. Will Verizon offer this kind of thing built in to a phone? I’d like that, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Thoughts?
Dave