David Lee, a TechCrunch Disrupt finalist, tells about Shakr

This post is written byHyunseok Choi, editor atOnsuccess.me, a Korean Tech Blog with insights into Korean startup ecosystem and tech space.

There are more than enough high quality text data on the Internet. Ourgoal is to be the worlds number one video content provider, proudlysays David Lee, CEO of Shakr Media, a Korean startup included in the 17that made it to the final round at the TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing, the firstDisrupt ever to be held outside the U.S., at in interview with us.

Video of Shakrs pitching at the TechCrunch Disrupt
  • Value creation
In short, Shakr is a service of combining text with images easily. Forexample, it imports an article from the New York Times or CBS News site,extracts key words from it and combines them with images or video clipsexported from else where. The article is read out by TTS (Text-To-Speech), with 3D images implemented by Web GL technology. Price?None! Its not Shakrs way to put a business model first. For now, we justfocus on value creation for users, says Lee, revealing his productphilosophy. He believes that a business model comes naturally when heobserves users feeling a moment of, to quote his words, Magical Aha!.
In addition to the service of combining news with images, Shakr is nowpreparing another service: life video. As the name suggests, this service isabout recording important moments in ones life. Lee expects that theservice will be popular especially in Korea. Many Koreans have a DSLRand they celebrate a lot of events: a first birthday party, wedding ceremonyand even pepero day, to name a few. The other day, I wanted to make analbum of photos taken at my kids first birthday party, but found that itwould cost a lot and take ! quite so me time before the album actually comesinto my hands because all the work would be done manually at the studio.Shakrs life video uses Web GL technology to instantly create a video onlywith user provided photos for free or at a very low price, says Lee. Thisservice is slated for the first quarter of 2012.

2NE1 fromDavid Lee onVimeo.

Shakr was included in the 17 finalists out of over 400 participants atTechCrunch Disrupt Beijing. More surprisingly, it was at the event that thedemo was ever revealed publicly. We just tried to focus on our internalcompetency rather than heeding others words. It is not that they are notimportant. We had our own team and just wanted focus on what we weredoing. We had hoped that some day an opportunity would come for us toparticipate in TechCrunch because it is one of the most influential mediafor startups. Luckily, the event was held in China, our neighboring country,and we went for it. It was our first public showcase and, fortunately,brought us a lot of good feedback both at the site and from online, saysLee. Many partnership offers have been made to Shakr since the Beijingpitching. Lee says that for now they want to focus on improving theirservice.
  • Why a startup in Korea
As seen in the TechCrunch Disrupt video, fluent English speaker DavidLee was born and spent his younger days in Canada. How come did heend up in starting a business in Korea even after he worked for a U.S.company for several years? Canada lags (in technology adoption andbusiness activities) and so does the U.S.. Silicone Valley and New Yorkare fast, but I found them rather boring. Most of all, it is very difficult to findthe right people. In Korea, everything is fast and fun. It is relatively easy tofind good people. Dos he mean that Korean startups have little difficulty infinding good human resources? Lee adds,! I hear that most Korans preferlarge corporations. But there are still many who want to do what they reallywant. Isnt that easy to invite them to startups? Fast growing Shakr has aplan to restart people in 3D and motion graphics in 2 to 3 months.
Shakr announced the start of a private beta service for Sha.kr at ReadWrite Web Meetup Seoul and added that the life video service would startin March or April next year. (The beta service is available from its websiteif you are a facebook friend of any Shakr member.) Though devices likesmartphones and tablet PCs are already part of our lives, the needs oflean back users have been looked over by most apps. Obviously, the TTStechnology used by Shakr still has a lot to be improved, (it is rather funnyto hear the New York Times read out by TTS), but isnt it an intriguing ideathat we can see and hear imaged news articles?

Related posts:

  • List of 17 companies presented at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing
  • TechCrunch Disrupt Coming to Beijing Entrepreneurs Get Ready!
  • Jawbone (Bluetooth headset) and Techcrunch Disrupt Beijing



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