Throughout August, Spinvox has been commented upon by media sources ranging from the BBC to the blogosphere as well as by its investor(s) and CEO:

· http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8163511.stm

· http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/07/the_spinning_of_spinvox.html

· http://prweek.com/uk/news/928678/SpinVox-social-media-guru-James-Whatley-exits-firm/

· http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2009/08/whatley-quits-the-sinking-ship-that-is-spinvox.html

· http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/04/spinvox_visit/

· http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/08/17/spinvox-what-to-do-if-youre-concerned-about-your-privacy/

· http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article6806439.ece

· http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/Julie-Meyer/xgqic86vif.html

· http://moconews.net/article/419-interview-christina-domecq-ceo-spinvox-pt-1-managing-through-the-crunch/#comments

All this online traffic is an interesting case study in how a tech darling can become the target of negativity, what levels of cash burn and privacy/data protection observance are considered acceptable by users and where the current state of the tech sector in Europe is.

It’s tough out there……………………

The SpinVox situation is also a reminder about the differences between Web 1.0 and where we are now in Web 2.0. During Web 1.0 there was a wireless tech company in my portfolio. The CEO was female (and I support female CEOs with the same equivalence as male ones). The SLAs (service level agreements) signed and client lists were extensive and impressive; we’re talking about household technology brands and internationally renowned corporates. The technology was considered “world-beating”. Its investor base numbered several Tier 1 investment banks and global technology providers. At one point its valuation was in the US$ high hundreds of millions. If there had been an IPO, my bank would have participated in the beauty parade to win the mandate for IPO issuance etc.

Unfortunately, despite investors’ best efforts to right-track the company and the management team, it subsequently filed for Chapter 7 amidst legal claims of mismanagement, accounting fraud and IP infringement by management.

Hopefully, this isn’t a situation that applies to SpinVox. I’m not involved with the company in any way and only its investors, management and key employees would know and are positioned to (and mandated to) deal with whatever the situation is.

What’s noticeably different from my Web 1.0 experience and the Spinvox scenario is the presence of blogosphere threads — apparently from former and/or current Spinvox employees. The accusations on this PaidContent thread from a user called “SpinVox Insider Jr” are particularly astonishing:

* http://moconews.net/article/419-interview-christina-domecq-ceo-spinvox-pt-1-managing-through-the-crunch/#comments

This goes beyond “washing your dirty linen in public”. It’s also a revelation about how the Internet is breaking down or blurring previous concepts of employee decorum, corporate integrity and corporate PR/ reputational crisis management.

In our Web 1.0 situation, concerned employees contacted investors and we followed strict legal due processes between investors and management to try and resolve it as sensibly as possible. All of this was conducted via secure, private and confidential emails and conference calls between the parties involved. There was no open public outcry. Less than a handful of people were privy to various communications about why writing down and exiting the investment was appropriate — based on financials provided, calls about the growth strategy, future funding requirements and confidence in the existing management team.

Now in Web 2.0 the Spinvox story shows investors and companies seem to be being held to account by others besides their Board of Directors, the regulators, ethics committees, Data Protection Acts and accounting standards bodies. Online participants like the BBC’s technology correspondents seem to feel a sense of ownership over the company even when they have no equity. In a sense, the blogosphere could also be said to be democratizing corporate information in a way which is different from the previous “push” practice of releasing PR and expecting it to be accepted with minimum resistance or only light questioning. Now the feedback — negative as well as positive — is immediately pushed back. The intensity of scrutiny afforded by the Internet and some associated anonymity is noticeable.

Our world as we know it is irrevocably being changed by the Web and its contributors and commentators.