Spinvox, the BBC and concerns about privacy

It might not be a long hot summer in the UK but it’s probably been a steamy week for James Whatley, the man who runs ‘Social Media’ at Spinvox, the nice speech-to-text service people.Putting News International’s cavalier attitude to privacy behind them, the BBC got stuck into Spinvox for alledged use of live call centre operators in transcribing speech-to-text. Whatley’s defence included the  bizarre claim that the number of messages referred to live operators is some kind of trade secret, the revealing of which would compromise company security. The BBC hit back by revealing company salaries, then referring to patents that made mention of human intervention in the transcription service. Back and forth they went with their claims…

Perhaps the most suprising fact I learned was that the average annual salary at Spinvox is a phenomenal £96,369, this in a staff of just over 200. The highest paid director earns just over half a million a year. OK, it’s not quite boo.com but if any VCs are reading this: how can a shareholder director possibly justify that salary in this current economic climate? If I’d invested in Spinvox, I’d be asking for a quick look at the books and an AGM right about now.