OVERVIEW

Voices.com has designed, created and implemented an online marketplace for the world's largest corporations and broadcast entities to search for, audition and hire language service providers such as translators and voice-over professionals since the year 2003. Voices.com is a corporation registered in the province of Ontario with its head office located in London, Ontario, Canada. The company was originally registered on December 15th, 2003, incorporated on October 25th, 2005 and continues to operate profitably in 2011 as Voices.com.

THE MARKET

The research firm, Common Sense Advisory recently stated for 2005 the total industry revenue for the language services industry, including language translation and voice-over recording, was more than $8.8 billion worldwide in 2005, and reached over $12.3 billion in 2010.

EXISTING CUSTOMERS

Clients that have already worked with Voices.com include ESPN, PBS, The History Channel, Reader’s Digest, Comcast, Nortel Networks, Bell Canada, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Macromedia, ING, Western Union, Ford, GM, Jaguar, US Army, the US Government and many more.

THE FOUNDERS

David Ciccarelli, Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer. As the founder of Voices.com, David offers management experience as well as a clear vision for the future. Most recently, David presented Voices.com as a New Voices winner at DigiFest 2005, an award recognizing Voices.com as an industry leader who provides digital media products and innovations that contribute to Canada’s economic and cultural future. In 2000, David graduated from the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology with an Honor’s Degree in Audio Technology.

Stephanie Ciccarelli, Co-Founder, Vice President of Marketing. With a depth of experience in human resources, vocal production, and copy writing skills, Stephanie is able to effectively communicate the objectives of Voices.com to voice talent and client members through email campaigns and customized newsletters each month, personalizing the experiences for all prospects and customers of Voices.com. Stephanie is also the author of The Podcasting Ebook: Your Complete Guide to Podcasting and The Definitive Guide To Voice-Over Success, and The Voice-Over Script Collection.

PRODUCTS

Voices.com is the leading online marketplace, connecting buyers and sellers of language services, such as voice-overs and language translations. Clients (buyers) including radio and television stations, advertising agencies and corporate communications executives value and rely on Voices.com to provide an easy environment to search, audition and hire voice talent directly. Voice Talents (sellers) are equipped with a comprehensive set of self-managed tools to effectively market themselves and conduct business online.

CRITICISM AND CONTROVERSY

TechCrunch - “Startup Cries Foul at Google’s New Radio Ads Product” Voices.com has been helping to match advertisers with voice talent and ad production for the last couple of years. He claims the Google ad product is nearly identical, although he hasn’t seen it yet and has nothing to go on but the CNET quote above. But he also says that for the last couple of months traffic to the site from Mountain View (where Google is headquartered) has gone through the roof, accounting for about 5% of total voices.com traffic. He’s suggesting that Google has scoured the voices.com site to figure out what to copy in the Voices.com business model. http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/11/startup-cries-foul-at-googles-new-r... http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/voices.com/

StartupSquad - “Voices.com does ELance for voice services” SurePay, which was launched at the start of last month is an online escrow service created by Voices.com to help make hiring professional voice actors simple for both parties involved. SurePay enables both parties to negotiate terms and finalize agreements, make a deposit, get the job done and deliver the files, ensuring that the client is satisfied on one end and the voice actor gets paid for his work. http://startupsquad.com/2007/06/06/voicescom-does-elance-for-voice-servi...

OTHER REFERENCES

CNN - Internet gives voice to unseen actors http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/06/11/voice.actors/

NYTimes - The Do-It-Yourself Economy http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/opinion/13friedman.html