Razz Widget - A Review

Razz  specializes in audio software that allows people to mix sound clips into their mobile phone conversations or audio recordings.

Visitors to the Razz Web site can create audio mixes consisting of user uploaded background music, user recorded audio, and Razz's specialty, little sound effect audio clips (gongs, buzzers, etc.) The Razz widget allows users to embed their Razz mixes on their blogs or SNS profile pages.

The closest thing to Razz that I have personally used is the Odeo recording studio, which also lets you embed your recordings in a widget format.  Odeo made the marketing decision to target podcasters with their recording studio, while Razz has added a bunch of sound effects to their studio to go after the teen demographic.

Applications & Opportunity

On the widget side of the business, Razz is a personalization play that hopes that user mixed audio will join other content formats like video, avatars, and quizzes as preferred forms of self expression among users of sites like MySpace and Bebo.

The audio clips include sounds like various farting noises, as well as a whole category called “risqué” that includes a wide variety of sex and alcohol themed noises – it would appear that this content is being positioned squarely in the MySpace sweet spot.

Logically, this sounds like a pretty solid strategy.  Audio is just another format, and providing folks with the tools to embed personalized audio would seem to be just as good an idea as letting folks embed videos.

In practice however, there are some troubling signs.  Odeo is no longer betting the farm on audio embeds, most likely because uptake was not what they expected.  Additionally, Razz is a well-funded company with a blue chip management team and big name backers that has been around since 2005 – yet to date, it would appear that they haven’t been able to find much traction.    

A “site:myspace.com linkdomain:razz.com” search on Yahoo! Shows seven results, including a couple of members of the management team.  This doesn’t mean that there are only seven Razz embeds on MySpace, but it’s a little troubling – the same search for Quizilla shows about 80,000 results.

So what’s the market and opportunity for customized audio embeds?  At this point, we don’t really know.  We do know that this niche has not seen the same growth as other embed verticals such as image, audio, and quizzes.

Configuration and Testing

Widgets are generated on Razz via the Razz Mixer – a Flash based recording studio that consists of three primary panels: the sound effects, the recorder, and the background music.  In order to save a widget, you need to register with the service. 

The Razz Mixer really is pretty impressive.  I had no problems uploading a track (drm-less, of course), and the controls are pretty intuitive.  My three-year-old nephew and I had a blast playing around with all of the sound effects on here – there are hundreds, if not thousands of sound effects available.

Once you’re done recording your audio, you click “save” and Razz generates the Flash based widget code.  There are no configuration options other than titling the widget, and even by going into the code to change the width, this widget does not reduce very well (as you can see).

The widget itself is nicely branded, and Razz includes the obligatory backlink below the player, in plain HTML.  As with other highly personalized widgets, a “put this widget on your site” option doesn’t work very well for Razz.  The fact that they require registration is an additional barrier to viral sharing.

You can listen to my test widget in the sidebar.

Editorial

I’m sort of at a loss on this one.  Razz is clearly an extremely professional and well-executed effort.  The remix studio is gorgeous and easy to use.  The idea is sound.  The company’s pedigree is first class.

But something isn’t clicking yet.  Maybe it’s the forced registration – if it were up to me, I’d roll the dice a little bit and let people build Razz widgets without registering, just to see if uptake improves.  You can always turn registration back on later.

There’s also something a little awkward about having such an obviously teen focused site (complete with 6 different styles of fart noises!), run by such a serious as a heart attack management team.  I don’t know what the answer for this conflict is – I mean, it is what it is, right? 

It also may just be a question of demand.  In some ways, video may have leapfrogged audio here.  Most people find video to be a more compelling medium than audio, unless you’re in a car or on a cell phone or something.

Which brings me to my final point.  It appears from the Razz site that they are hedging their bets a little bit by pushing mobile, and the ability to “Razz your friends” from your cell phone.  While I’m not yet completely buying the new vertical of “in conversation entertainment,” hedging their bet is a good call – much like Odeo / Obvious Corporation is doing with Twitter.

I'm seeing a live demo of Razz next week at CNET - I'm looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

Comments

[Jeff Malkin]

Hey Lawrence,

I am Jeff Malkin, CEO at RAZZ. Thanks very much for taking the time to review our new RAZZ Mixer platform. As a musician for much of my adult life, I enjoyed the "serious as a heart attack" comment... is that how my bio reads? :) Anyway, I wanted to let you know that RAZZ, Inc. is currently distributing its RAZZ mobile software via leading Operators in many countries around the world -- this has been our bread and butter. Only very recently did we dive into the social networking / online space. Unlike Odeo, we actually make money in the mobile space as consumers continue to show their willingness to spend for premium content services. We're hoping for the same success in the online world. For our short web life, we're off to a pretty good start mostly because of bloggers -- very much appreciated.

Best,
- jeff

[lawrence]

Thanks for chiming in Jeff, and I appreciate the context for the widget vs. mobile emphasis. I deserve to be called out on that "serious as a heart attack comment" - there's nothing wrong with being a blue chip start up addressing the teen market. Looking forward to your demo next week.

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