8月1日，谷歌（Google）前拉丁美洲与亚太区运营负责人苏克辛得•辛格•卡西迪正式启动Joyus公司。这是一家集在线视频、电子商务和社交平台于一体的网站，也许对它的最佳描述是下一代电视购物厂商QVC。

    Joyus的运作模式如下：Joyus特别关注美丽、时尚、生活和家居等方面的产品，目前已与数家女性产品生商达成协议。Joyus将制作长度为若干分钟的网络视频，它们根据在线用户的变化而进行有针对性的优化（与长度为半分钟的电视广告相比可谓新生事物）。Joyus从广告中收取少量费用并从成功的交易中收取一定佣金。

    Joyus于今年2月启动，最初由250名朋友及家人作为“种子客户”，这些人可以邀请各自的朋友。随后Joyus收购了时尚博客Splendora，随着博客创始人吉娜•佩尔的不断推荐，目前已有7万到10万名女性客户正在关注Joyus的视频。现在大家可以在Facebook上将自己加为Joyus的粉丝，Joyus还计划在今年秋天面向全体客户开放。

    Joyus在启动时发行了55万美元的可换股票据，在第一轮融资中又成功募集到730万美元。加速合伙公司（Accel Partners）和哈里森金属（Harrison Metal）共同负责了此轮融资，辛格•卡西迪曾进入前者学习并开展过创业活动。其它投资者还包括天使投资人乔尔•海特（CurrentTV首席执行官）、文吉•哈利那亚以及拉纳得•拉贾罗曼【沃尔玛（Walmart）电子商务部高管】。

    写到这里，我本应该告诉你Joyus能否成功，或是会成为又一个风险投资悲剧。不过我也不知道这个问题的答案。所以我不能告诉你答案。

    但这并不意味着我无法列出Joyus的优势和劣势。例如以下内容：

优势：

    1 令人印象深刻的管理团队：拥有卡西迪和易趣（eBay）前时尚产品负责人戴安娜•威廉姆斯等名角。

    2 有机会通过在线购物和专注于年轻买家等手段颠覆当前的家庭购物市场，该市场目前正专注于电视渠道和年龄较大的买家。

    3 辛格•卡西迪有可能利用在谷歌的经验，为Joyus加入个性化。假如我们正在观看QVC，那我们所看到的商品都是相同的。Joyus现在也是如此，不过在不久的将来，事情也许会发生一些变化。

劣势：

    1. 这一领域对于进入者没有明显的技术或市场壁垒。Joyus认为其价值主张是将电子商务与高端视频及社交相结合，不过几乎所有人都能这样做（包括其它电子商务公司）。

    2. 目前缺少个性化，而这正是在线买家翘首以盼的。而且这种专注于女性产品的购物网站现在多如牛毛。

    3. 难道20多岁的年轻人真的愿意耐着性子看完长达4分钟的润肤乳广告吗？要知道，在正片前插入的15秒广告都会让这代人厌烦不已。

    不过由于上面诸多因素过于松散，所以我没法得出结论。Joyus是一家缺乏防御性技术、以个人消费者为主导的技术公司，而在风险投资的带动下，每个月都会出现几十家这样的公司。这意味着Joyus的成功与否很大程度上取决于品牌营销 （及其获得商品的能力，而这两个因素之间的关系，正类似鸡与蛋的关系）。

    辛格•卡西迪能将Joyus变成快乐、价值、美丽或是强制购物的代名词吗？如果可以，那么Joyus将发展成下一个定位社交网站Foursquare或是家居装饰网站One King's Lane；如果不行，定位社交网站Gowalla和美容网站BeautyStory.com的今天就是Joyus的明天。

    不过此时此刻，我们还无法预知Joyus的未来。你、我以及Joyus背后的风险投资家们对此都无能为力。虽然通常而言，很难对处于发展初期的公司做出预测，不过对于Joyus这类公司，它们的未来更难琢磨。唯一值得欣慰的是，风投们在抛出大笔资金之前，通常都会有所预见。

    所以我们不妨拭目以待。能做出预测固然显得高明，但有时未必是明智之举。

    译者：项航

    Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, former head of Latin America and Asia-Pacific operations for Google (GOOG), yesterday officially launched a new company called Joyus. It's an online video meets e-commerce meets social platform that might best be described as a next-generation QVC.

    Here's how it works: Joyus signs up makers of women-focused products, with a particular emphasis on the beauty, fashion, lifestyle and home verticals. It then produces a several minute web video, which is designed to be optimized for online customer conversion (which is a different animal than 30-second TV spots). The company charges a small fee for the ad, and then takes a cut of any resulting revenue.

    Joyus launched this past February with a "seed audience" of 250 friends and family, who all were allowed to invite their own friends. Then it bought a style blog called Splendora, which came with a list of between 70,000 and 100,000 women who now see Joyus videos accompany the recommendations of blog founder Gina Pell. Today users began being able to "like" Joyus videos via Facebook, and plans are to open the site up to all comers sometime this fall.

    The company raised a $550,000 convertible note at launch, and since has secured $7.3 million in Series A funding. Accel Partners, where Singh Cassidy had been an entrepreneur-in-residence, and Harrison Metal co-led the round. They were joined by angel investors Joel Hyatt (CurrentTV CEO), Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman (e-commerce execs at Walmart).

    This is supposed to be the part of the post where I tell you if Joyus will succeed, or become just another VC-backed casualty. But I can't do it. So I won't.

    This isn't to say that I can't make up a list of pros and cons. For example:

Pros:

    1. Impressive management team, including Singh Cassidy and eBay's former fashion product boss Diana Williams.

    2 Opportunity to disrupt current home-shopping market that focuses on TV and skews older, by going online and concentrating on younger buyers.

    3 Chance to add personalization, by tapping Singh Cassidy's Google roots. If you and I both watch QVC, we see the same items. Same with Joyus right now, but probably not for too much longer.

Cons:

    1. No obvious tech or market barriers to entry. Joyus thinks its value proposition is combining e-commerce with high-end video and social, but pretty much anyone could do that (including other e-commerce companies).

    2. The current lack of personalization, which digital buyers have almost come to expect. Plus a rash of other women-focused product sale sites.

    3. Do 20-somethings want to sit through a 4-minute video about body lotions? Remember, this is a generation annoyed by just 15 seconds of pre-roll ads.

    But I can't reach a conclusion because so much of the above is largely irrelevant. Joyus is a consumer-facing tech company without any defensible technology – just like dozens of other startups that raise venture capital each month. That means most of its success or failure will come down to brand marketing (plus its ability to secure merchandise, which may be a chicken-and-egg game with brand marketing).

    Can Singh Cassidy make Joyus synonymous with fun or value or beauty or compulsive shopping? If so, it can become FourSquare or One King's Lane. If not, it could become Gowalla or BeautyStory.com.

    And, at this point, there is no way of knowing. Not for me, you or the Joyus venture capitalists. Such ignorance has always been endemic to early-stage companies, but it seems elevated with companies like Joyus. The only saving grace is that VCs generally get an indicative answer before plugging in tens of millions of dollars.

    So we wait and watch. Predictions make for better copy, but not always smarter copy.