Celia Francis is the CEO of WeeWorld. Before joining WeeWorld, Celia was the UK Head of Product Marketing and then Executive VP of Marketing at T-mobile. Celia received a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Visit the corporate page here.

What is WeeWorld, where is it based, and how large is the company? Who do you consider your main competitors?

WeeWorld™ lets you create a visual representation of yourself, called a WeeMee, that you can take to any of your online or mobile communications platforms (think instant messaging, community sites, your mobile phone, email, VOIP, etc.). WeeMees show your emotions, hair style, fashions, interests/passions, location, choice of beverage and so on. WeeMee are animated and live in backgrounds that are also animated when you click on them. When you update your WeeMee in WeeWorld, your WeeMee gets updated in other places as well.

WeeWorld is based in Boston, London and Glasgow and also has a few people in the Bay Area. WeeMee are used in 39 countries (last time I counted) and we have an equally large user base in North America, Europe and Australia. We have about 40 people in the company – mainly a mix of America, English and Scottish techs and creatives.

WeeMees are fully integrated in AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype, Friends Reunited, Excite and WeeWorld. WeeMees can travel freely between these sites and on to the most popular other digital places such as MySpace, Hi5 and Hotmail and Yahoo email signatures. WeeMees can also travel to and live on mobile phones. We have a WeeWorld mobile application distributed by Jamba/Jamster and Motorola and users can get their WeeMee on their mobile phone for use with CallerID or in picture messages. WeeMee owners can also create their own WeeSpace, send cards and messages to friends and family, chat with other WeeMee owners and even use their WeeMee on to snatch panties off a panty line in Pogo for Panties (check out WeeWorld to see what I mean). The cool thing about WeeMees is they can be used really everywhere on the web and mobile rather than being stuck in one place.

There is a new WeeMee born over few seconds, with more than 11 million users that have at least one WeeMee. Although we feel WeeWorld is a unique offering, there are a number of avatars out there, like Meez and the Klonies . No other company has the partner distribution or open approach for travelling that we do. Within the next year, our users can expect to see even more partner launches, letting WeeMees travel across our partner sites and experience a richer ‘home’ on WeeWorld where they can live, work and play.

How do your partnerships develop? Some major companies have become WeeWorld partners. Why have they decided to integrate WeeWorld into their service instead of building their own like Yahoo has? Is your business model based on these partnerships?

WeeWorld partners like us because we are so much fun for their users. Over 50% of people who see a WeeMee builder make a WeeMee. That’s a pretty strong personalization element for any web or mobile company. We are also accessible to every type of user, not just techies.

A recent quote from Greg Sterling, founding principal, Sterling Market Intelligence, sums our offering up really well.

WeeWorld's approach to social networking, and use of WeeMees as a visual identity, reflects where the Internet is headed – toward greater graphical richness and more immersive online environments and experiences.

We think that today’s technology-immersive users have multiple opportunities for personal expression online, offline and on their mobile phones. WeeWorld lets users create their own personalized identity that travels throughout their digital world, allowing them to make each destination and service more fun. For a partner like Microsoft or AOL that’s pretty key.

We also have a design integrity that makes us the best. All WeeMees are beautiful, easy to make and more inclusive – no matter your age, ethnicity, religion, weird interests, you will find a WeeMee for you. I am confident that’s why WeeWorld already boasts global partnerships with many of the world's biggest Internet and mobile organizations.

Take our partnership with AOL as an example: As the friendly face of AIM®, users will be able to personalize their instant message window with a unique animated environment that all about you, teeming with emotion and visual humour. There are cool surprises everywhere. When you are chatting and type in "TTYL" a Humvee limo comes out and picks up your WeeMee. When you write " flower, " your WeeMee gives your friend a flower. When you type " puke, " your WeeMee throws up on the screen. Stuff like that makes us special. You should check it here; there’s too may backgrounds and animations to name.

We are confident that our offering is unique. WeeWorld is the only online personalized identity provider that enables users to carry their alter-ego with them throughout their online and off-line lives. For example, you can buy T-shirts and personal cards with your WeeMee on them to hand out at parties.

There seem to be an enormous number of ways to customize your WeeMee. How many different articles of clothing and accessories are there? How large is the team that handles that, and how often are new items behind added?

There are more WeeMee combinations than people on the planet – each person could have 100 WeeMees without 2 being identical. We offer cool items ranging from a polka dot bikini to a Stetson. We try to keep pretty up to date with what we offer and users can change their WeeMee as many times as they want.

In terms of the team, over a quarter of the team are creatives. That’s a fair reflection of the company’s ethos; we are all about self-expression, so a large part of the team are creative. Although we all like to think we’re bit creative at heart .