Interview with Elizabeth Tarbell of Vivapop.com

On September 6^th, 2006 we posted an article entitled, “Are We Online Calendar Obsessed?” that discussed some details about startup companies producing online calendar solutions. One of the companies we mentioned was Vivapop.com (operated by LiliLojik LLC), which provides an online web based calendar and events management service. Vivapop has received positive feedback from several sources including Techcrunch who expressed that Vivapop “offers a very nice interface, cross platform bidirectional syncing and voice recognition for mobile access”. After posting our article we received a significant amount of emails written by end users wanting to learn more about Vivapop. We quickly contacted Vivapop and had the opportunity to ask its founder, Elizabeth Tarbell, a few questions about her company and offered solutions.

TechAddress: Tell me a bit about your company, what it does and what’s your value proposition?

Vivapop: Vivapop.com provides calendar publishing, schedule management and communication services to over 100 organizations in the Greenwich CT, New York City areas and beyond. These calendars (our Partner Calendars) are published centrally at vivapop.com and on partner organization’s websites.

TechAddress: What makes your company stand apart from your competitors?

Vivapop: Schedule management and communication services set vivapop.com apart from its competitors. We create structure and logic around each organization’s scheduling data. We then publish each organization’s programs and events (our Partner Calendars) in the same calendar interface with the same navigational features. And we provide ongoing support to these organizations.

Vivapop.com also offers subscription services including personalized vivapop.com calendars that link real-time to all Partner Calendars, true bi-directional sync and call-in access. Vivapop.com subscriptions allow Outlook users to continue to use Outlook and still sync programs and events to their Outlook calendars from any vivapop.com Partner Calendar.

TechAddress: What are some of Vivapop’s main features?

Vivapop:

1) Links to hundreds of community-based programs and events.

2) Call-in Access which allows vivapop.com subscribers to review their appointments or make an appointment from any phone.

3) Bi-directional sync with Outlook so now you can have Partner Calendar events and programs on your Blackberry.

4) Automatic updates to your personalized vivapop.com calendar, your Outlook calendar, on your computer, phone or PDA.

5) Time zone functionality which allows vivapop.com subscribers to adjust their calendars based on their then current time zone – perfect for business or vacation travel.

TechAddress: Who’s your target customer or audience?

Vivapop: Our target customers are groups that need to share scheduling information: businesses, committees and/or families, and organizations that are looking for powerful schedule management and communication functionality.

TechAddress: Any new things in particular that you’re working on right now?

Vivapop: We have a number of enhancements in the pipeline application-wise, and, of course, we are focused on increasing our Partner network.

TechAddress: Where do you see your company heading in the future?

Vivapop: We expect to take vivapop.com national.

TechAddress: Any negative feedback or criticism regarding technology and services?

Vivapop: Sure, skeptics abound 🙂 but those who are taken through the entire application are usually very impressed with the vivapop.com system.

TechAddress: So what would you say is the guiding principle behind your company?

Vivapop: Keep focused 🙂

TechAddress: What is the mission of your company and what are you bringing to the market that is innovative?

Vivapop: Vivapop.com’s mission is to simplify the lives of busy people by providing them with a web-based, voice accessible, sync-enabled scheduling and communication system that is fully integrated with local community resources, programs and events.

TechAddress: Where are you in terms of funding and your lifecycle?

Vivapop: Angel-round.

TechAddress: If your technology or service is not formally launched yet, when’s the launch date?

Vivapop: We officially launched September 2006.

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