Posts Tagged ‘Digital East’
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
 David Moldavsky By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – Trying to sell people something on social networking sites, even at a discount, is probably not your best social media strategy. So says David Moldavsky, currently VP of Web Strategy and Development for the Graduate Management Admissions Council and formerly director of websites at language learning firm Rosetta Stone.
At Rosetta Stone, says Moldavsky, “We tried putting out special offers (on social media) in the beginning, but that fell flat.” But then it focused on building a community about language learning and now has 7,000 Facebook fans.
“Finding people who are passionate about your product who will be champions for your brand makes the job challenging,” he says. But it is worthwhile.
“At the end of the day, word of mouth is still the best way to sell your product,” Moldavsky says.
The need to focus on a community of people rather than direct selling via social media echoes what iStrategyLabs CEO Peter Corbett told us about online campaigns.
Both Moldavsky and Corbett and many other top Internet experts, entrepreneurs, executives and venture capitalists will participate in Tech Media’s first Digital East event at Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18.
Understand your goals
Moldavsky says that the first thing an organization looking for a social media and online presence needs to do is “Decide who inside the organization is going to do it.” Often, a company’s web guys, its consumer marketing people, and others all have an interest in the firm’s web projects.
But who “owns it,” asks Moldavsky. “Usually,” he says, “it’s the person with the most passion and most knowledge.”
But it still requires decisions about how to staff it out internally or whether to hire a few people, and deciding what, exactly, the company plans to with a social media presence once established.
In most places he’s been, Moldavsky, says, “It took a few years.”
Basically, “It’s about understanding the goals of your organization and what you’re trying to do and forming your media presence around that.”
For instance, at the Graduate Management Admissions Council where he works now, “We want to talk about the importance of graduate management education and the GMAT exam and its critical nature in the graduate admissions process.”
Moldavsky just began with the new firm in July, so, he says, “That’s what we’re going to talk about and figuring out how to do that is my top priority.”
Tags: David Moldavsky, Digital East, facebook, Graduate Admissions Council, Rosetta Stone, social media
Posted in Education, Events, Internet/New Media, Potomac, Virginia, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Friday, September 10th, 2010
 RESTON, VA – More people now spend time on Facebook than search on Google, according to Reston-based digital measurement firm comScore. In August, Internet users spent nearly 10 percent of their time on Facebook, just over the 9.6 percent of their time they spent searching on Google.
U.S. users spent 9.1 percent of their time on Yahoo, according to comScore. Facebook surpassed Yahoo in user time spent for the first time in July.
The gains for Facebook are impressive. Last August, web users spent less than 5 percent of their time with the social networking site, which now boasts more than 500 million members.
ComScore uses a unique combination data from servers and a panel of two million users to tally its figures.
We’re not sure we use Facebook more than Google, but as journalists, Google is essential to our job as well as in our personal life. We do use Facebook more and spend more time there as our group of friends increases. We suspect as even more people become Facebook members, time spent on the site will continue to grow.
This can be a problem for some companies if workers are visiting Facebook during working hours, but some research has shown that such breaks from daily routine can actually increase production.
ComScore’s COO, Greg Dale, will provide insight into the company’s “Unified” measurement techniques and what they mean to marketers and other Internet businesses at the first Digital East event being held Oct. 18 at Tysons Corner, VA.
For a preview of his Digital East discussion see: Click is absolutely the wrong measurement
To contact TechJournal South Editor & Writer Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: comScore, Digital East, facebook, Facebook use surpasses Google search, Google, Reston, Tysons Corner, VA, Yahoo
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, Studies, surveys, reports | Comments Off
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
 Peter Crobett, CEO iStrategyLabs By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – They were just meant for love.
Insurance seller GEICO wanted to boost its brand online, and iStrategyLabs had just the right idea for them. They took GEICO’s familiar cavemen from TV and print ads and created the www.iheartcavemen dating site. “It had a place where you could turn yourself into a caveman with bushy eyebrows and long hair,” among other entertainments, says Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategy.
The company even staged a fake startup launch party in Austin where a “A lot of tongue in cheek stuff” went on involving cavemen. The whole meme spread throughout the Internet on Twitter and Facebook and elsewhere. “It was covered on six of the ten top blogs, hundreds of thousands of videos and we had a happy client,” says Corbett.
The campaign demonstrates his company’s strategy of combining the digital world with real world experiences.
Corbett, who is one among more than 50 participants in the upcoming Digital East event in Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18, has been doing Internet marketing about as long it has been possible.
His firm has worked for top of the line clients: Disney, Nasdaq, the U.S. Army, ESPN, PBS and American Eagle, among others. He speaks frequently on social media marketing. Doing it for some of the bigger brands, Corbett has good insights into what does and does not work.
What works?
So what works? we asked.
“Building a community,” Corbett says. “Thinking longterm, not short term. And you have to deliver value.”
That means, he says, that if you want to sell car insurance, in order for a social media campaign to deliver value, you have to deliver value to an audience that asks, “Why should I engage with you on Facebook or Twitter?”
To bring people together around a common brand, you build for the long term, he says. Then, if possible, bring them together in the real world. If you have a 100,000 Facebook fans, invite them somewhere for a free yogurt or other inticement.
Corbett says successful digital marketing for brands should avoid “a transactional approach to your customers. No one wants to be sold anything in the social web, where they expect to connect with human beings, not just people trying to take money out of their pocket.”
You have to care about what they say
Instead, Corbett says, “You have to show you care about what they say. Start by listening. You have to listen and act on it. If they say your product sucks, they want to know you’re going to act on that. But if you show you care they’ll come back again and again and your marketing campaign will be more successful.”
That’s actually an advantage the digital age provides companies, Corbett says. “It was hard to do in the past. You couldn’t do it at scale via a phone center. Now you can respond in real time on the web.”
Another thing required for success online is understanding the culture and language of your customers, a lesson Corbett notes that Moltrin learned the hard way when it tried to tell mothers they shouldn’t carry babies in backpack slings. “They didn’t understand that it was a cultural thing and treading on that to sell pills was the worst thing they could do,” he explains.
“You need to understand and integrate yourself into the culture using the right language and behaviors,” he says.
Shiny bauble syndrome
This year, Corbett says, many firms are “Still in the shiny bauble syndrome” when it comes to using social media. “They create a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but a lot of times it doesn’t mean anything. They just rebroadcast press releases or sales. It’s garbage.”
Smaller businesses actually have a real opportunity in front of them because they don’t have to convince a bureaucracy to do something special,” says Corbett. “But they have to be incredibly relevant and deliver value.”
On the other hand, Corbett says, “Most really large organizations get it. If can be difficult in the financial sector, because they have so many regulations or if you’re publicly traded, but for the most part, when people hear the right strategy they know it’s something they can act on.”
One reason may be that in the digital era, “We can track ROI 50 different ways. In most of our campaigns, we can track top line revenue. I come from a direct response market, so being able to tie in cost per sale or lead is exciting to me.”
Corbett says iStrategyLabs practices what it preaches. “We’ve used social media to grow our company,” he says. “Blog posts, the Twitter presence I’ve had, the way we explain what we do in social media and share it. We live, eat and breathe this. WE don’t just prescribe it to people because we think it might work. That’s why we have big clients.”
Corbett has won multiple industry awards, including the Great Washington DC Board of Trade’s “One To Watch” award for being “A rising entrepreneur who has a bright and sustainable future in Greater Washington”, has been named one of the most influential Washingtonians under 40 by WashingtonLife Magazine, named one of 100 Tech Titans by Washingtonian Magazine and is a “Top 25 Most Fascinating Communicator in Government IT” according to GovFresh.
Watch for part two of our Interview with Peter Corbett for a few additional tips on successful social media marketing.
Tags: DC, Digital East, digital marketing, facebook, iStrategyLabs, Peter Corbett, social media marketing, twitter, Tysons Corner, VA
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, People | Comments Off
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
 Mark Rostick By Allan Maurer
RALEIGH, NC – Good venture investing can be counter-cyclical and a bit counter-intuitive, says Mark Rostick, director of East Coast investments for Intel Capital. That’s why Intel continues to invest even in downturns. “If you have the capital, it’s a good time to invest when the market slumps. It creates opportunities. You hope the value of those investments then rise with the tide when the economy comes back.”
That situation also gives companies a time to mature before they have to ramp up sales, he adds.
He recalls that one of the great industrial titans once remarked that when his shoeshine guy gave him stock tips, it was time to get out of the market. “If you invest at the top of the market when everything is crazy, you don’t always make the best returns.”
Rostick is one of more than 50 Internet experts, thought leaders, executives, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists slated to participate in Digital East in Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18.
Social networking over hyped
Rostick covers all areas of investment focus for Intel with particular interest in internet, semiconductor, wireless and communications opportunities. “Outside of making good investments, we invest in stuff that’s complementary to our products,” he says, “mostly in software and products.” Anything that increases computer or server use, which would in turn increase use of Intel products, such as cloud computing, fits the bill.
Social networking, however, may be a bit overhyped, he notes, and green tech, while it gets a lot of attention, poses some risk. “We made a few investments there (in green tech). He sees a big opportunity in the development of sensors and monitors that network factories and buildings in the machine to machine sector.
Intel also spends a good bit of time looking at consumer Internet opportunities. “Location-based services have been a dream for a long time,” but recent developments are driving more interest in those, he says.
Mobile device management opportunities
Mobile device management is another area where Rostick says he sees “a lot of opportunity,” as do the proliferation of devices.
“When I get on a plane, I see people with their Kindle or their iPad or iPhone out. One of the big stories is just the proliferation of those devices as broadband becomes available everywhere. Everyone thought, “Gee, I’ll trade in one device for another,’ but I’m seeing just more of them, not replacement devices.”
Delivery of apps across those devices is another potentially profitable arena for Intel investments. “We see a lot of opportunities in software platforms that span those devices,” he says.
There is also little doubt that apps moving to the cloud presents another big opportunity. “It’s a shift in the way work is done in computing and anytime there is a big shift we spend a lot of time there,” says Rostick.
Rostick, who lives in Raleigh, NC, says he wants to be sure people know that Intel is active in the Southeast. “We are active in the region and in the market looking for investments.”
To contact TechJournal South Editor & Writer Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: cloud computing, Digital East, green tech, Intel Capital, Intel investments, Mark Rostick, social networking
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, IT, Money, North Carolina, Potomac, Virginia | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
 RESTON, VA – Digital measurement firm comScore (Nasdaq:SCOR) has acquired Nedstat, which sells web analytics and video measurement solutions for about $36.7 million.
Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Nedstat offers technology that helps organizations optimize customer experiences and maximize the return on digital media investments.
With the Nedstat technology installed on thousands of sites, the acquisition helps comScore accelerate its global expansion strategy, particularly in European markets, and strengthens comScore’s Unified Digital Measurement platform, which combines panel-based audience measurement with census-level data collection to provide a holistic view of digital consumer behavior.
“The acquisition of Nedstat is another important step towards fulfilling our vision of making the Unified Digital Measurement platform the global standard for digital measurement,” said Dr. Magid Abraham, comScore president & CEO. “In addition, our clients are asking for a new class of business applications to maximize the monetization of their audiences using the UDM data we already collect.”
TechJournal South recently interviewed Gregory Dale, COO of comScore, who will be participating in the first Digital East conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18. Dale discussed comScores United Digital Measurement platform, which will be a focus of his discussion at the event. See: Click is absolutely the wrong measurement
Tags: Acquisitions, Amsterdam, comScore, Digital East, Dr. Migid Abraham, Gregory Dale, Nedstat, Netherlands, Reston, United Digital Measurement, VA
Posted in Acquisitions, Events, Internet/New Media, IT | Comments Off
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
 Gregory Dale, COO, comScore By Allan Maurer
RESTON, VA – Most people think of the digital world as direct response media, says Greg Dale, COO of digital measurement firm comScore. “You click on the monkey, go to some form and do something.” Yet, “The click is absolutely the wrong measure” of a digital ad’s effectiveness, says Dale.
At a recent event where he spoke, Dale asked the audience how many people had clicked on a banner ad last week? Last month? Last year? Few hands went up. So it’s a mistake to try to understand the effectiveness of an ad by how many people clicked on it, he says.
As one of comScore’s first employees, Dale played a critical role in the creation of the world’s largest representative, continuously monitored consumer panel. And those panels bring an extra dimension to comScore’s analysis of digital advertising and marketing, he says.
Panels are just one part of comScrore’s “unified measurement,” which includes standard Web analytics and other means.
Unified measurement a comScore key
Dale says unified measurment is one of the main topics he’ll address at the Digital East event in Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18.
A panel is essentially a group of people who agree to have their digital use measured for market research purposes. “The concept is old and used to be done via a diary or filling out sheets. We use a small piece of software on their computer and they’re tracked in an anonymous pool that identifies only their demographic characteristics – a male with a certain level of income, etc.
That allows comScore to provide its clients with data such as how many people visit both the client and a competitor’s site; whether people watch more video on another site than on the client’s; how many ads do they see?
Marketing campaigns are unique, Dale says and they’re not always designed to sell products directly.
Goals differ
“Goals differ. Sometimes a campaign is to raise awareness of a brand or introduce a new product to a group. We offer products to help measure that, to help understand how well it did hitting target segments, how much did awareness increase?”
ComScore studies have shown that effectively placed digital advertising campaigns can perform as well or better than TV advertising at moving package goods. But people don’t necessarily buy the product online. Many see the ad and buy in the brick and mortar store.
The economic downturn has actually pushed more marketing campaigns online, Dale says. “It’s a cheaper medium, which is something that does well in a recessionary environment.” That’s contributing to the continued death of many print media outlets, although TV has been able to maintain.
Even TV is seeing the number of people who view an ad drop year after year because of the proliferation of channels, Dale notes. “I don’t know how they keep their rates jacked up. It’s one of the trends that’s baffling.”
Don’t use click throughs
But, Dale says, the more a company such as comScore can educate people on measuring online media in the right way, the smarter they can be about how they spend their money.
He re-emphasizes, “Don’t use clicks to measure a branding campaign,” and adds, “Cookies don’t equal people.”
“There is a whole other world out there,” Dale says, adding that the comScore panels help understand that side of the equation. “How effective was your advertising?” To find out, the marketer should ask if it raised awareness, fostered the right kind of activity, made a customer or potential customer more engaged or led to buying in a store.
How good is the creative?
A key element to success, Dale says, “Is how good is the creative? That will have a huge effect on the campaign no matter how good everything else is.” A company may run tons of ads on your site, he points out, and then say, the response was terrible. “Do they think about discussing the quality of the ad on the site? Typically that’s never taken into account.”
You also need to be able to look at the connections between an ad and the content on the site, the “amplification that a site can provide.”
So, Dale concludes, “You need to be very careful of what you measure and you need to understand all these elements to measure in the right manner.
Tags: Digital East, digital measurement, Gregory Dale, Interview with comScores COO, Reston, Tysons Corner, VA
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, IT | Comments Off
Friday, August 27th, 2010
 Ken Yarmosh By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – While some venture capitalists are skeptical about making mobile apps a sustainable business, others are throwing money at iPhone and iPad pure plays. DC-based mobile expert Ken Yarmosh tells us that there is plenty of money to be made in the mobile app space whether VCs grab a piece or not.
“There are a number of successes and they’re not just one-offs,” says Yarmosh, who notes that the most successful are game or entertainment oriented.
He says the smartest angle for VCs to pursue is probably to invest in platform plays rather than just in apps themselves. “But there is plenty of money to be made by individuals and companies,” he says.
Yarmosh authored the book App Savvy: Turning Ideas into iPhone and iPad Apps Customers Really Want, for O’Reilly, and is a product strategist focused on mobile apps. He helps clients develop Android, iPhone and iPad apps and maintains a blog at KenYarmosh.com.
Yarmosh is one of more than 50 Internet, mobile, and digital business experts who will converge on Tysons Corner Oct. 18 for the first Digital East event.
Some big success stories
Yarmosh says about mobile app development, “We’re not talking about making hundreds of millions here. Is there a Google on iPhone or iPad? I don’t think so. But it doesn’t have to be that. For an individual, I’d take a couple million from a single game.”
If you look at the games sector, for instance, “There are some super success stories,” he says. “The best game developers are making $3 million or $4 million from top games. Look at Doodlejump. It was created by two brothers who are splitting a couple million, so it’s been pretty lucrative.”
According to Wikipedia, On June 25, 2010 it was announced that Doodlejump had totaled over 5 million sales. It has been reported of having 28,000 downloads per day.
Mobile differs from the web
Mobile is a different space than the web in one very distinct and notable way, he says. “On the web, even the most successful sites have had a hard time figuring out how to monetize.”
In the mobile world, however, paying for apps is fairly standard and free is not the name of the game.
One advantage of making mobile apps is that Google’s Android store and Apple’s App Store does much of the business logistics and marketing for the makers. “The Apple iTunes store has 150 million credit cards on file,” he notes.
Google may be a bit behind, “But they’ll be making a big push on that in the next couple of months,” Yarmosh says.
Mobile still a moving target
Existing brands making mobile apps as another channel to their products and services have done well, but not every brand or company needs a mobile app, Yarmosh says.
Many, however, are approaching him for advice on what to do this year to prepare for 2011.
“They’re looking at this year and asking how will it lead me into next year,” he says. Some firms are willing to throw some money at mobile this year, but don’t really expect much to start happening until 2011.
“Mobile is such a moving target this year,” he explains. “Tablet devices have been touted for some time as the ‘Next Big Thing,’ but didn’t really materialize until Apple introduced the iPad.”
Android device makers are very active and is surpassing Apple in the number of devices using the Google operating system and shipping daily.
So, he says, “People are just trying to keep up with what’s happening. They’re not sure if things will change drastically again this year. They want to be leaders, but they don’t want to over or under invest in something they don’t completely understand.”
Yarmosh says he sees a lot of indications that tablet computing and apps are becoming important this year. “I have my iPad with me in every meeting and that’s the only thing they’ll want to talk about.”
Big opportunity for Android
He says he’s particularly interested in seeing how the Android space plays out, because it allows a lot more customization than the iPad. “You can control some operating system elements.”
That means some businesses will find Android devices more compatible with their needs to customize certain elements than the Apple tablet.
“There’s a big opportunity for Android in Enterprise apps,” he says. “I don’t think it will become a huge gaming platform. Apple always leads with consumer apps.”
An additional issue affecting the use of iPhones is its limit to one carrier (AT&T), he adds. “More choice is always better,” he says and thinks it’s only a matter of time before Apple expands that option.
“If I were AT&T, I’d be offering Apple buckets of money to keep that contract,” he says.
Yarmosh himself carries both a Nexus One Android device and an iPhone4 currently.
He has some highly relevant advice for mobile app and mobile device makers, which we’ll look at in part two of this interview next week on TechJournal South.
To contact TechJournal South Editor & Writer Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: Android, AT&T, Digital East, Doodlejump, iPad, iPhone, iPhone4, Ken Yarmosh, mobile apps, mobile games
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, Telecommunications, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
 Cammie Croft By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – While the Obama Administration has taken its share of political heat, no one says it is not Internet and new media savvy. From helping establish the first New Media department at the White House to her current role as Department of Energy Senior Advisor and Director of New Media and Citizen Engagement, Cammie Croft has played a pivotal role in helping the administration create and shape its approach to new media communications.
Croft most recently served as the Deputy New Media Director at the White House. Prior to that, she was New Media Rapid Response Manager for the Obama for America campaign.
Croft is one of more than 50 Internet gurus, entrepreneurs, executives, venture capitalists and other stake holders participating in the first Digital East conference in Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18.
Just the beginning
Croft is already hard at work helping give the DOE some turf in the 21st century media landscape. On July 20, the DOE launched its blog and Twitter account. Its Director, Stephen Chu now has a Facebook page.
That’s just the beginning of Croft’s efforts to meet its three main goals, she tells us. Those goals are:
Amplifying the DOE’s announcements about its programs, activities and work; providing transparency and accessibility to the DOE’s work; and providing service to and engagement with citizens.
While Croft notes that the first thing she does every morning is look at the comments on the agency’s Facebook page, Twitter responses, new media email, and “Anyplace the public engages with us,” she says.
A different approach
She adds that while there are various ways of setting up online communications teams, such as having a Facebook manager or director of Twitter, she is taking a somewhat different approach.
The media specialists on her team, she explains, “Will focus on key subject areas,” rather than a person focusing on one communications channel and being responsible only for that each day. “So,” she says, “A number of people have that as part of their responsibilities. I think of it as online programming.”
But, Croft says, the DOE blog and social media presence is not all the agency needs.Currently, she points out, the DOE is a large entity with a variety or pre-existing web sites, online programs, Facebook accounts here, Twitter accounts there and Linkein somewhere else.
“We need to rebuild the entire web platform,” she says. “We need to do Web 1.0 really well before we can do Web 2.0 really well. So our first priority is to overhaul energy.gov to make it a better resource for the public.” That includes significant rebuilding of the front and back ends of the site, she notes.
How it helps
“We’re trying to set u a structure and best practices forum to elevate the quality across the agency, but in such a way as to foster innovation.”
One example of how social media helps the agency get its message across happened just recently, she says.
“We have an event with the Vice President regarding our weatherization program. So people have been asking questions about weatherization all this week on our blog and social networks. One person said she couldn’t afford weatherization. We let her know the program is for people just like her. That’s an example of responding to a Facebook comment and providing what she needed within a 24-hour time frame,” Croft says.
Tags: blogs, Cammie Croft, Department of Energy, Digital East, DOE, facebook, new media, twitter
Posted in Energy, Events, Government/Defense, Internet/New Media | Comments Off
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
By Allan Maurer
 MCLEAN, VA – If you spend much of your time, effort and money working on your web site’s landing page, you’re probably missing a major opportunity to capture more attention from your visitors. So says Kelley McDonald, director of Information Architecture with Navigation Arts, a McLean, VA-based web design and development company.
“Most traffic goes to content pages within your site,” McDonald tells us. “Only 15 percent goes to the landing page.” Nevertheless, it can be difficult to get clients to listen when he tells them that, McDonald admits.
“Three quarters of the doors through which people come into your site are content pages. You’re missing a big opportunity by not thinking about how to serve people where they are actually landing,” he says. “Think of Google as your homepage. People experience you through your content pages and they don’t march through your site as if they’re in a house.”
If our own analytics are any guide, McDonald is right on with his. Half our traffic comes from search engines and almost all goes to content pages rather than our landing page.
Design from the inside out
How do you take advantage of knowing people arrive at content pages rather than a landing page?
“Design from the inside out,” says McDonald. “Ask yourself how you can build on the question that brought them to the content? It’s important to have highly relevant links to other content that builds on the user’s question.”
That doesn’t mean services that automatically provide links to somewhat relevant content, he adds.
He also recommends avoiding “happy talk.” It’s all the “Hi, welcome to our site, we’re here to server your needs,” type of copy so prevalent on business sites. “It’s a highly ignorable block of text that people quickly gloss over,” says McDonald.
More technically, he also suggests separating content from its display, creating relationships between objects and systematically relating pages.
It’s not magic
There will always be a large percentage of users who come to a site for one item and leave, he notes. “We don’t think you’ll ever catch more than 35 percent (to click on other content).” But the idea is to “Move the dial closer to what you want.”
“The key thing is relevancy. It’s more about the content than technique.” Eye-tracking studies show where people look and where they don’t, but “It all comes down to content people need or want and what’s relevant to them,” McDonald says. “It’s about taking that extra step to connect things. I don’t think it’s magic.”
Treat ads as content
The same concept works regarding advertising on the web, he says. “Advertising online is in many ways a blind spot for people. Studies show people avoid it if it looks the least bit like advertising. Eye-tracking shows them avoiding ad spaces.”
Making ads more relevant and more digital increases the chances that people will engage with the ad,” he points out.
“It’s about personalization and localization,” he adds. “If you can serve up ads related to the user and what his questions are (that brought him to the content), and if they’re treated and shaped more like content, they work better. If they’re shaped like print ads, no amount of trickery will work.”
“The user experience is the bread and butter of what we do at Navigation Arts,” McDonald says. The 70-employee company includes 19 information architects.
McDonald is one of more than 50 Internet and digital media experts who will converge on Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18 for the first Digital East event.
Diversified DC market good to the company
McDonald tells us the Navigation Arts founders, who ran and sold Bethesda-based Iconics during the dot com boom era, wanted to “Give it another go and focus on quality.”
They filed their company papers the day before Sept. 11, 2001 at the Watergate Hotel, but despite those inauspicious beginnings, established a solid reputation in the Mid Atlantic region, Houston, and upper MidWest.
“The DC market has been good to be in for user experience,” says McDonald. “There are so many different kinds of organizations here. It’s the capital of non-profits, there’s the federal government, telecom startups, and different startups in Northern Virginia.”
That multi-faceted DC economy means that during the downturn, Navigation Arts business “Didn’t skip a beat, we had irons in the fire with so many different buyers, all focused on the user experience.”
Designed city portals
While the company doesn’t pretend to be a large government IT integrator, it does find projects where it can have a big impact, McDonald says. “We look for projects such in e-government, anything that is citizen-facing.”
It’s been working on a major project, not yet live, for the State Department consulates to streamline its processes to make finding information on Visas, passports and fraud much easier and faster, for instance.
It also redesigned the Charlotte Observer’s Charlotte.com site to make it more focused on social media, and a city portal site for Richmond, VA.
“Both have done well and we created each in two months from inception to launch,” McDonald says.
The Navigation Arts site follows the company’s own advice. It is user friendly and offers lots of short videos, including several by McDonald, on improving user experience and other topics.
Tags: Charlotte, Charlotte Observer, Charlotte.com, DC, Digital East, Houston, interview, Kelley McDonald, McLean, Navigation Arts, NC, Richmond, Tysons Corner, VA, web design, web user experience
Posted in Events, Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, IT, Potomac, Virginia, Washington, DC | 2 Comments »
Friday, August 20th, 2010
 While some folks in the mobile space we have talked with say Android phones are gaining traction and Apple had to deal with the overblown Antennagate problem, venture capitalists have rained money on iPhone and iPad startups focused purely on developing apps for those devices in the last 12 months, according to a report by CB Insights.
In 17 rounds, 16 firms raised $120.6 million with the average raise pegged at $7.5 million. The largest deal was for $25 million and the smallest for $200,000.
VCs led about 60 percent of the deals, while angels took the lead on aboug 18 percent. VCs and angels partnered to fund about 25 percent of the deals.
Nevertheless, some VCs remain skeptical about the sustainable business potential of the space.
In a recent interview, Don Rainey of Grotech Capital, who is one of 50 speakers at Tech Media’s Digital East conference Oct. 18 at Tysons Corner, VA, said he has yet to see a mobile app pure play that made a lot of money for a company. “It’s a hit oriented business and it’s tough to keep coming up with hits,” he says.
Tags: angel investors, CB Insights, Digital East, Don Rainey, Grotech, iPad, iPhone, pure play ipad/iphone startups, Venture Capitalists
Posted in Internet/New Media, Money, Telecommunications | Comments Off
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
 Jon Carpenter By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – “If I can spend $25 and get something worth $50, it’s a compelling value proposition,” says Jon Carpenter, director of marketing for LivingSocial, the DC-based company that has raised $50 million this year alone to expand its LivingSocial Deals service. Members save from 50 to 90 percent off deals at restaurants, spas, sporting events, hotels and other local attractions.
LivingSocial raised more money than any DC-area consumer oriented startup since AOL and has rapidly expanded its local deals program, closing in on 60 cities. It has also rapidly expanded its employee base from 20 to 200 as it puts people on the ground in each city it adds to the LivingSocial Deals program and builds its customer service department in DC.
“We made the strategic decision early on to have boots on the ground in every city,” Carpenter tells us. He says the company looks for reps who grew up in a city and/or “Have their fingers on the pulse of their cities. We put a top priority on quality, so finding them is more difficult than say just doubling staff at a call center.”
Hot business sector
The recession and whatever it is we’re in now has people looking for bargains, but Carpenter notes, “Any time is a good time to save money.” That at least partly explains why the discount group buying space is one of the hottest digital businesses out there right now.
As we’ve pointed out numerous times at TechJournal South, LivingSocial, Groupon and others have raised huge amounts of expansion cash and the space has more than 100 players, although only four are in more than two cities.
Room for lots of players
“We think there’s room for a lot of players,” Carpenter says. “It’s anybody’s guess what this will look like five years from now. Wish I had a crystal ball,” he adds as fire sirens whine in the background. The company headquarters is in DC’s Chinatown and not far from a fire station.
While restaurant, spa and other deals are fairly common offerings, LivingSocial also presents deals on shooting ranges, medical services, teeth whitening, and pole dancing classes, among many others.
LivingSocial started out offering the Facebook “Pick Five,” app, but rapidly progressed to its revenue producing deals service.
Carpenter is one of more than 50 top Internet gurus, digital maestros, executives, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists slated to participate in the first Digital East conference at Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18.
Prior to joining LivingSocial, Carpenter worked in digital strategy for clients such as the US Department of Energy, Bombadier Transportation, smartUSA and DARPA.
He was also an early product manager at Steve Case’s Revolution Health.
See also: Local deals firm growing because they provide merchants with leads
Living Social grabs another $10M
Five Questions for LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy
Tags: Digital East, group discount buying services, Groupon, Jon Carpenter, LIvingSocial, local buying
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, Potomac, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
 Robert Marshall, CEO, WeatherBug By Allan Maurer
GERMANTOWN, MD – Weatherbug is one of the most successful sites on the web, in the top ten in the news and information category with 32 million unique monthly users. But while the web is not going away, it is going mobile, and Robert S. Marshall, founder and CEO of WeatherBug, says he agrees that “Mobile is the new standard.”
“Mobile has been a big focus for us for a long time,” Marshall says. “Weather information is the top content area used by consumers on mobile devices.”
Smartphones are driving a lot of the web going mobile sector, he notes. “Our usages statistics are significantly greater on smartphones,” he says. “They’re fast, offer a great user experience and people are becoming accustomed to them.”
Out in front on mobile
Marshall says the company is out in front on mobile already. Available on every smartphone platform, It has 12 million unique monthly users on mobile devices and is the 13th top mobile property.
“Our traffic of unique users has grown 185 percent year over year and the vast majority is coming from smartphone platforms. Android platforms have really accelerated and caught up to iPhones much faster than I thought they would, although we’ve had a success story with the iPhone as well.”
While some content is not particularly suited to a phone’s small screen, “Weather information certainly is,” he adds.
The proliferation of new hybrid devices such as the iPad and other tablet computers is another reason mobile is becoming a new standard way for people to access the web, he says.
Nothing more local than weather
The company, which makes its money via advertising, can offer something special to those using it to present marketing messages. “Weather is all geographically targeted,” Marshall says. “There is no better geographically located content than weather.” So WeatherBug can offer geographically precise targeting.
Founded in 1992, WeatherBug started in the education market by pioneering a program that included the installation of professional-grade automated weather stations at schools to help teachers apply real-world technology for math, science and geography curriculum. The schools were networked together to provide visibility into nationwide weather conditions and the WeatherBug Network began to form.
In 2000, WeatherBug launched the free desktop application, offering PC users live local current conditions and severe weather alerts right in their system tray. Within eight months of launch, 1.5 million users had downloaded the application, and since then WeatherBug has become one of the most popular desktop weather software ever with more than 78 million registered users.
We asked if WeatherBug has to maintain infrastructure to handle increased traffic during major storms and weather events. “It does have to handle those peaks,” Marshall says, but adds that the increase in traffic is not as big as one might think on a percentage basis.
“Even on normal days, people check the weather.”
Nevertheless, WeatherBug’s data centers handle humongous levels of traffic: 20,000 connections every second, 3 billion connections a day.
Advice: content still king
While Marshall admits that the company’s investors want to move toward an event that provides liquidity, “We’re growing, profitable and producing cash,” so the company is focused on delivering a great user experience whenever and wherever a consumer wants it, he says.
One of the things that separates WeatherBug from its competitors, Marshall points out, is its proprietary hyper local weather reporting system.
We asked Marshall what advice he would give to an entrepreneur starting out in the digital realm today. “At the end of the day, content is is king,” he says. “You have to find content large numbers of people want ot consume and then design and develop delivery platforms to give superior user experience fast and when they want it.
“Do that effectively, grow your user base, and you when you achieve the proper level of scale, you monetize and create a business.”
Marshall is one of more than 50 digital industry luminaries, entrepreneurs, executives, and venture capitalists participating in the first Digital East event at Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18.
Tags: Digital East, mobile, Robert Marshall, WeatherBug
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, Potomac, Virginia | Comments Off
Friday, August 13th, 2010
 Jiyan Wei By Allan Maurer
RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC – While the mantra that “content is king” remains true for successful online search engine optimization and social media marketing, one expert says that it is equally important to “Listen and interact.”
Jiyan Wei, director of product management at Ferndale, WA-based PRWeb, and PR software firm (Vocus), who also maintains the blog, “New Influencer,” tells us that putting out content such as news releases and blog posts is just one component of an effective strategy for creating online visibility.
“There are also a lot of things you can do from a listening and interactive perspective to achieve goals,” he says. “That can be as effective as spitting out content.”
Find the influencers
One way to do that is to understand the different channels you can use to track what’s going on in your industry, who the influencers are, and how to talk to them.
PRWeb’s HARO service is one listening tool that connects experts with reporters looking for specific sources and experts, he notes. “From a business perspective, you can use it to gain insight into what journalists and bloggers are writing about.”
Firms should also find out who the influencers are in their industry community vertically and regionally and reach out to them, says Wei. They’ll be found on Twitter, blogs and other online venues. “You can create visibility through them as a vehicle,” Wei says.
Search engines put more focus on local
PRWeb did a case study in which a local travel and tourism business held an event specifically for local influencers and received an outpouring of support from them. “A lot of tangible results came from that,” he says.
Wei, previously vice president of Online Services for v-Fluence Public Relations where he was responsible for defining and developing services to monitor and analyze online activity, is one of 50 experts, entrepreneurs, executives, venture capitalists and others participating in Tech Media’s first Digital East event in Tysons Corner, VA, Oct. 18. He tells us he will discuss the influencer case study and other aspects of online marketing and visibility at the event.
“There have been a lot of changes in the search engines in the last 12 to 18 months, he points out, many oriented toward increased focus on localization. “I’ll be talking about what that means to business owners and marketers,” he says.
Wei says marketers and content producers can take advantage of that by using local identifiers in different ways. “Tactically, use local identifiers in the title, summary, body and anchor text,” he suggests. “You want to make sure the content comes through when people have local alert systems set up to maximize the local impact of news releases.”
Another way to increase attention and visibility for online content is to include multi-media components, especially video, he says. Releases with video perform better than those with just straight text and do some things better than text.
Catching the video wave
A Poynter and New York Times study in which two versions of a story, one multi-media, one with just text, was viewed by a panel. After they watched both, they found people who read the text recalled facts such as dates and times better, but they understood processes better via video.
So, says Wei, if a company wants to demonstrate how its software works, using video is probably more effective than describing it in text. Some firms, he notes, are doing that by using video of demos on computer screens.
Many firms seem to be catching on to the video wave. “You would be amazed at how much video comes through our wire,” he says. “And many come from small businesses. It’s so easy now.”
People are making videos with phones and small handheld cams that connect directly to a PC via a USB and can be uploaded directly to Youtube or the Web, he says.
Wei says he speaks at events such as Digital East up to six times a year and they benefit him as well as his listeners. “It’s an opportunity for me to step back from the day to day operations and think more critically about what is going on.
“They’re a great way for me to see what other people are doing in the field and get a sense of how the market is moving and changing,” he says. “They’re also a great opportunity to interact with potential customers and see how they react to our products.”
To contact TechJournal South Editor & Writer Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: Content is king, Digital East, Ferndale, Jiyan Wei, listening online, New Influencers, online visibility, PRWeb, SEO, Tysons Corner, VA, WA
Posted in Carolinas, Events, Internet/New Media, IT, Marketing, North Carolina, People | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
 By Allan Maurer
VIENNA, VA – Google rose to great heights essentially by “selling leads.” Don Rainey, general partner with Grotech Ventures, says that Grotech’s portfolio company, LivingSocial, through LivingSocial Deals, and its competitors, such as Groupon, are doing the same thing.
“That’s the reason they’re getting the lift they are,” Rainey tells us. DC-based LivingSocial has raised around $50 million just this year and is rapidly expanding its locally focused deals program. Groupon, based in Chicago, raised $135 million this year and is also expanding rapidly.
They are succeeding because they help local merchants acquire new customers and cost of acquisition is significant. “These companies are saying ‘Here’s an opportunity to buy customers.’ It can’t be understated that merchants are in a win-win situation this way.” While they offer discounts through the local group buying services, they generally offer incentives to attract new customers or fill a restaurant on off nights any way, Rainey points out.
Rainey calls localization “the last mile of commerce,” a metaphor playing on the telecom mantra about the last mile of service to the customer’s door.
While some tech news outlets “Go on and on about all the Groupon clones,” which number about 160 firms in the U.S. today, Rainey notes that if you dice the list to those with opportunities in more than two cities, “You’re down to four.” Those four include Groupon and LivingSocial deals.
It’s a massive market
“The ability to scale is part of the equation,” says Rainey. LivingSocial, for instance, added 40 cities in one day last month and has added more since. That kind of growth “Is not cheap,” Rainey adds, but says LivingSocial is doubling in size every 60 days. “They started the year with 50 employees and they’ll end with 500.”
“It’s a massive market,” Rainey notes. “Customer acquisition for merchants and localized commerce for consumers can support quite a few more than two companies.”
Personalization, one of the buzz words of the moment in online and mobile commerce, offers both convenience and privacy concerns. But Rainey says he thinks most people see the utility in letting sellers know “I’m male, 50 and don’t want Brazilian waxing offers.”
On the other hand, he says, “I sure want to see the ones I would buy, such as a Brazilian steak house or fly fishing advertisment.”
He says that information identifying where someone is at any given moment may be a more legitimate privacy concern than some computer having personal information aimed at hitting a buyer with targeted ads.
Mobile apps not consistent money-makers
Mobile apps are another sector where startups seem to pop up every afternoon at 3. Rainey, however, says that with some exceptions, he doesn’t see how most firms will make much money with them.
“My sense is that no one has come up with a mobile app that has made consistent money. With 200,000 apps, it’s hard to get attention. No one is willing to pay much for them. The ones making money are just another access point (a way to use an online resource on a mobile device). But I don’t know how you make a stand alone mobile app without the component pieces.
“Even games are a hits business. Most games do 90 percent of their sales in the first 90 days. It’s tough to keep producing hits. So you have no longtail running franchise, which is how most businesses survive. I wouldn’t want to make a living from mobile apps and no one has succeeded terribly well at doing so.”
Facebook needs management tools
Talking about social networking, Rainey says he thinks Facebook will, as rumors suggest, make it easier for people to decide who sees their status updates. “I have a network mix of personal and professional on Facebook,” he says. But if he has a post that is 100 percent business related, he doesn’t necessarily want to share that a friend from high school.
Providing better management tools could tighten its “stranglehold” on that space, he says.
While many Facebook users get riled up when rumors float that the company might charge for the service, Rainey says, “Once all the competition is gone, why wouldn’t they charge? With 500 million users, even charging $1 would be significant.
Cub reporters on Twitter
Rainey finds Twitter “intriguing,” but says, “It’s not at all clear to me where it’s headed and how useful it will be.”
One thing he finds difficult to take is the number of people who “Play cub reporter on Twitter. “Sen. Stevens reported down in an airplane.” If you’re in the news business, I understand that. But if you’re just some random Joe, I don’t understand the value derived from doing that.”
Another thing he’s noticed, he adds, is that he gets requests from some would-be Twitter followers who have 10,000 followers and are following 10,000 people. “I don’t know if I would enjoy following 10,000 people,” he says.
Nevertheless, Rainey says, “I think it has tremendous potential as an advertising medium,” although he believes advertising on the service will be “Twitter Controlled.”
Rainey is one of more than 50 entrepreneurs, executives, digital experts and venture capitalists participating in the first Digital East event Oct. 18 in Tysons Corner, VA.
This is part two of our interview with Rainey. See part one here:
Tags: advertising, customer acquisition, Digital East, Don Rainey, facebook, Grotech Ventures, Groupon, LivingSocial Deals, local merchants, mobile apps, personalization, twitter
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT, Maryland, People, Potomac, Telecommunications, Virginia, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
 Don Rainey By Allan Maurer
VIENNA, VA – In the new “recession-driven” America, there is a big opportunity for startups to develop technology that helps people save, manage, and spend their money, says Don Rainey, a general partner with Potomac-based Grotech Ventures.
In an interview that ranged from companies providing local buying deals, such as Groupon and Grotech-backed LivingSocial, to the future of Facebook and Twitter, Rainey said the recession has made consumers money conscious.
Grotech focuses on early stage information technology companies. Rainey currently serves on the boards of Grotech portfolio companies ARPU, Clarabridge, LivingSocial and Zenoss, as well as the Northern Virginia Chapter of the March of Dimes. It has offices in Maryland and Virginia.
In Fall 2008, Rainey was appointed for a second term as an emerging technology consultant to the Chief Information Officer of the US Department of Defense through the DeVenCi Program. The DeVenCi Program consists of a handful of venture capitalists who research and nominate companies to solve the US Department of Defenses’s unmet technology needs.
Money is where the money is…
Money is the dominant concern of consumers these days, Rainey says, which opens a number of opportunities for startups.
“The consumer in the 1990s was enamored of technology focused on the new, new thing and the Internet brought a lot of that to their doorsteps,” Rainey told us. “Today, there is a different focus in the minds of most consumers.”
They have lost their fundamental trust in banks and Wall Street, he notes. “Consumers are going to be open to different banking offers.”
That means there are opportunities for startups offering new savings, investment and payment vehicles.
More firms will leverage electronic money management
Also, Rainey sees alternatives to credit card payments–which cost merchants a processing fee–as generating competition in the electronic payments space. “There’s a tremendous inefficiency in payments that doesn’t benefit the consumer or merchant,” he says. “If people pay in cash, they want to benefit from doing so.”
He points to a program in the DC area that allows people to link their grocery store purchases to a gas station, resulting in points that can be used to get 12 cents a gallon off when they refuel.
“I think we’ll see more things that leverage electronic expenditures,” he says.
We mentioned that Atlanta has a number of startups and more mature players in that sector, particularly in online payments. “Banking centers are a logical source of this,” he agreed.
Charlotte, also a banking center, is on the other hand, not active at all in what seems a natural space for similar activity. “I was in Charlotte this summer, and I love it,” Rainey said. “But it’s curious…I don’t know if they need more local money or a pied piper to lead the way, but they have the talent to do this.”
Look for part two
Rainey is one of more than 50 digital domain experts, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists participating in the first Digital East event at the Hilton, McLean in Tysons Corner Virginia October 18. The event will cover topics such as Social Media, Cloud Computing, Web Analytics, Online Marketing, Ecommerce, Email, and Search among others. It is presented by Tech Media, which is also presenting the third annual Internet Summit in Raleigh in November.
This is part one of a two-part report on our interview with Don Rainey. Part two will take a look at his thoughts about local buying and advertising, privacy, personalization and social networking, particularly Facebook and Twitter.
To contact TechJournal South Editor & Writer Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: Atlanta, Charlotte, DC, Digital East, Don Rainey, Grotech Ventures, Maryland, money management, NC, opportunities for startups, Tysons Corner, Virginia
Posted in Carolinas, Events, Georgia, Internet/New Media, IT, Maryland, Money, North Carolina, Potomac, Virginia, Washington, DC | Comments Off
Monday, August 2nd, 2010
 By Allan Maurer
WASHINGTON, DC – LivingSocial’s aptly named parent company, Hungry Machine Inc., has snagged $10.23 million in equity from investors including Grotech Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Steve Case’s Revolution, bringing its total financing this year alone to nearly $50 million. The company has been ramping up its local group buying service, LivingSocial deals, rapidly, nearly doubling its markets in mid-July(LivingSocial nearly doubles its markets in one day).
The company disclosed the raise in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
LivingSocial closed a $14 million round led by Lightspeed Ventures in April on the heels of closing a $25 million round in March. It had previously raised $10 million.
The Northern Virginia Technology Council recently recognized LivingSocial’s earlier raise as the best VC deal of the year in its annual awards.
Interested in finding out how LivingSocial has gained such traction? John Carpenter, director of Marketing, LivingSocial, is one of more than 50 confirmed expert speakers slated for TechMedia’s first Digital East 2010 event at Tysons Corner, VA, October 18. (see: First Digital East Event set for October).
The company presented its business plan at TechMedia’s 2007 Southeast Venture Conference.
A Lightspeed managing director told the Wall Street Journal LivingSocial is growing as fast or faster than Groupon. The online group discount business can probably handle several leading players, but consolidation is likely somewhere down the road.
The companies all offer discounted group buying deals in local markets.
Chicago-based Groupon itself nabbed a $135 million round this year. Other competitors include Buywithme and Kashless.
Founded in the summer of 2007, LivingSocial began as a social discovery and cataloging network offering applications such as Pick 5 on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter that allow people to review and share their favorite movies, books, games, music, restaurants and beer.
Contact Tech Journal South Editor and writer Allan Maurer: Allan at TechJournalSouth dot com.
Tags: DC, Digital East, Grotech, Groupon, Hungry Machine Inc., LIvingSocial, LivingSocial Deals, Revolution, SEVC, Steve Case, U.S. Venture Partners
Posted in Internet/New Media, Marketing, Maryland, Money, Potomac, Washington, DC | Comments Off
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