Member Article

Q&A with Martin Rosinski, founder & CTO of Palringo

Q&A with Martin Rosinski, founder & CTO of Palringo

Martin Rosinski founded Palringo in 2006 at the age of 21. The company has more than 12 million users sending tens of billions of messages over the Palringo network, many of them gamers who use the service to organize clans, plan strategy and communicate during gameplay.

How did you get started in technology?

My grandmother bought me an electronics kit when I was eight and I became hooked. I started building devices and software to run them – and won the UK Young Electronic Designer of the Year Award five times in a row. By the time I was a university student, I was designing commercial software for my dad’s engineering firm. In fact, I developed my first commercial software application when I was 11. It was designed to trend data for measurements on a printing press and is still in use today.

Who are your mentors?

I always looked up to my dad. He introduced me to the world of technology and I really owe my interest and success in the field to him. And of course, every technologist looks up to Steve Jobs. He changed everything about the way we interact with technology.

What’s most exciting about Palringo’s success?

The pace of growth has been incredible. We’ve gone from 100,000 users during the first quarter of 2009 to one million in 2010 and now more than 12 million. And really, most of that growth has been driven by word-of-mouth. Gaming, in particular has been a huge growth segment for us. We’re seeing players of MMORPGs (massive multiplayer online role playing games) use Palringo to meet like minded gamers, arrange games and share tips and intel. This development introduces us to new power users every day.

How do you use the Palringo app?

What’s nice about Palringo is that you can use it in any environment. I can use the app to turn my phone into a walkie-talkie for voice messaging during gameplay. Or I can use group messaging to hold virtual meetings with our sales team, who are located on two different continents. I can browse the more than 300,000 interest groups on the Palringo network, ranging from gaming to music and everything in between to meet new people and chat.

What’s coming next for Palringo?

We’re always developing new ways to make the messaging experience even more interactive and rich. We’ve recently added the ability to geotag groups so people who are located in a particular place, or may be traveling to or interested in a particular place, can quickly find interesting messaging groups to join. We’re also working in partnership with games developers and publishers, learning from the established gamer groups we have on Palringo, to grow rich, interactive communities around their games to increase user engagement and retention.

What games release are you most looking forward to?

That’s a hard question to answer, there will be so many great releases in the next couple of months. I can’t wait for Elders Scroll v Skyrim, but I’m also looking forward to Battlefield 3, which promises to be the best one yet.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Jones .