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AZG Armenian Daily #087, 13/05/2006
People
ARMENIAN PIONEER
A Beirut-native, Haladjian arrived in France as a teenager and studied
linguistics. He entered the telecommunications industry in 1983,
pioneered the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in France in 1994,
FranceNet, and in 2003, sold it to British Telecom. Many would've
retired, but Rafi thinks big. He founded two companies, Violet and
Ozone, which are exploding the boundaries between technology and daily
life. Nabaztag (www.nabaztag.com), the Armenian word for rabbit, was
Violet's next product after WI-FI and their first for mass
consumption. With a barebones advertising campaign that relied on word
of mouth and web postings, it was released in June of this year and
Parisians rushed to grab 5,000 Nabaztags in ten days. Violet rolled
out another 10,000 units immediately after and those sold out in the
following few months. Now, the company is faced with the dilemma of
how to meet the steep increase in demand.
What makes Nabaztag unique is that Violet has found a way to make
techie objects friendly. Not only can users receive transmitted
emotions that tell Nabaztag owners they are loved through pulsing
colors or sounds, but they can be programmed to tell traffic, weather
and stock reports at a scheduled time.
Why Nabaztag? "First, because I'm Armenian," he replies. "Second, it's
hard to find names nowadays and if you want to differentiate a product
you want something that sounds different. When you look at Japanese
products they have Japanese names, like Tamagotchi. Nobody knows what
it means but you get used to it - so why not Armenian? People in Paris
don't speak more Japanese than Armenian."
People
ARMENIAN PIONEER
A Beirut-native, Haladjian arrived in France as a teenager and studied
linguistics. He entered the telecommunications industry in 1983,
pioneered the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in France in 1994,
FranceNet, and in 2003, sold it to British Telecom. Many would've
retired, but Rafi thinks big. He founded two companies, Violet and
Ozone, which are exploding the boundaries between technology and daily
life. Nabaztag (www.nabaztag.com), the Armenian word for rabbit, was
Violet's next product after WI-FI and their first for mass
consumption. With a barebones advertising campaign that relied on word
of mouth and web postings, it was released in June of this year and
Parisians rushed to grab 5,000 Nabaztags in ten days. Violet rolled
out another 10,000 units immediately after and those sold out in the
following few months. Now, the company is faced with the dilemma of
how to meet the steep increase in demand.
What makes Nabaztag unique is that Violet has found a way to make
techie objects friendly. Not only can users receive transmitted
emotions that tell Nabaztag owners they are loved through pulsing
colors or sounds, but they can be programmed to tell traffic, weather
and stock reports at a scheduled time.
Why Nabaztag? "First, because I'm Armenian," he replies. "Second, it's
hard to find names nowadays and if you want to differentiate a product
you want something that sounds different. When you look at Japanese
products they have Japanese names, like Tamagotchi. Nobody knows what
it means but you get used to it - so why not Armenian? People in Paris
don't speak more Japanese than Armenian."