Posts Tagged ‘myYearbook’
Friday, May 4th, 2012
By Allan Maurer
 Catherine Cook At the beginning of 2010, less than 2 percent of social discovery site Quepasa Corp. and myYearbook’s traffic came from mobile sources. “Now it’s more than 60 percent of our traffic,” says Catherine Cook, vice president of brand strategy for company, which is rebranding as MeetMe in July.
The company’s product feed is location based – it shows you where other people near you are – actually works better on mobile. “We’re turning into a mobile company,” Cook says.
Cook, 22, co-founded myYearbook, with her brother Dave in 2005, while they were still in high school. She recently was graduated from Georgetown University in 2011, but didn’t face the problem many grads do – landing a job.
The company merged with the Quepasa Corporation in Nov. 2011. Catherine is responsible for creating some of the most important applications on myYearbook and has been instrumental in driving the site’s growth by conceiving of the next popular features. Stories about Cook have appeared in CNBC, MTV, ABC News, Fox News, CosmoGIRL, BusinessWeek, the San Francisco Chronicle, and CBS.
Participating in two Digital Summit panels
She is one of dozens of Internet gurus, digital marketing mavens and thought-leaders participating in the upcoming Digital Summit in Atlanta May 9-10. She’ll participate on two panels, one on designing for multiple platforms and one on entrepreneurship.
We asked Cook for three tips on designing for mobile platforms.
First, she suggests, “Figure out which platforms you want to be on in the beginning. The more work you do in the beginning, the easier it will be to migrate to different platforms without completely rebuilding the app. Make it versatile and similar across the platforms.
Second, Make as simple as possible for the user. “Use the same type of interface as other popular apps. Make navigation easy on a small screen. It has to be less complicated and more intuitive. Narrow the focus to the features you need. Which do you really need? It can be a problem if you have a clunky app that’s hard to use.”
Third, “Try to figure out if there is something new you can introduce that you couldn’t do on the web.” She suggests doing the same thing when going to a larger screen such as the iPad’s. “You don’t want to have to completely rebuild the app, but at the same time, take advantage of everything a platform has to offer.”
Monetizing mobile apps still problematic
Cook says monetization of mobile apps via ads can be a problem. “The mobile ad market just is not there yet,” she notes. “You have to think more creatively about how to make money. The way most apps are doing it is via in-app purchasing. We’ve had some success there. Anyone on myYearbook with an iTunes profile is two taps away from buying as opposed to the web, where you have to fill out a form and provide credit card information.”
It’s not quite so easy on Android mobile devices she says. “Plenty of people with an Android phone never buy an app. My boyfriend has had one more than a year and never bought an app.”
She readily admits the mobile app landscape has heated up. One of the firm’s hardest business decisions early-on was to figure out its exact strategy after launching in 2005. At the time, Facebook was still only used on college campuses and there were a lot of people on MySpace. “We decided to narrow our focus and move into a new category. There weren’t a lot of meet-new-people networks then.”
Now, she says, “There is a new app coming out weekly in the same space, so there is a ton of competition, all trying to crack the same nut, how to engineer serendipity.”
Tags: Atlanta, Catherine Cook, Digital Summit, MeetMe, myYearbook, Quepasa, tips on building mobile apps
Posted in Digital Devices, Events, Facebook, Internet/New Media, IT, smartphones, Tech life/Culture | 1 Comment »
Friday, November 11th, 2011
 Gary Vaynerchuk keynotes the 2011 Internet Summit in Raleigh next week, which is nearly sold-out. Fewer than 50 seats remain for next week’s Internet Summit, which is bringing hundreds of digital media and marketing thought-leaders to the Raleigh, NC Convention Center Nov. 15-16.
The event, which attracts a capacity crowd, offers take-away insight into social media marketing, search engine optimization, ecommerce trends, email marketing, we and mobile analytics, big data, cloud computing, startup fund-raising and much more.
You’ll have access to visionary thought leaders who will share their insight and experience with you. Hear from the founders of companies like Twitpic, TheLadders & HowStuffWorks! Not enough? How about a Keynote from Top rated SXSW keynote and ‘Social Media King’ Gary Vaynerchuk?
That’s just a sampling of the more than 120 speakers and presenters that will be on hand.
We interviewed just a handful of the many presenters. For a preview of what thought-leaders will be presenting at the event see:
The Internet Summit’s Talented Speakers & Presenters include:
- Gary Vaynerchuk, Co-Founder, VaynerMedia
- Marc Cendella, Founder & CEO, TheLadders
- Marshall Brain, Founder, HowStuffWorks
- David Payne, Chief Digital Officer, Gannett
- Noah Everett, Founder, TwitPic and Heello
- Ro Choy, COO, Formspring
- Liz Strauss, Co-founder, SOBcon & LizStrauss.com
- Brian Hitney, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft
- David Perry, Business Development Executive, Google
- Jack Krawczyk, Sr Product Marketing Mgr, StumbleUpon
- Traug Keller, Sr VP of Production, ESPN
- Catherine Cook, Co-Founder, myYearbook
- Eric Ranta, SVP of Value Engineering, SAP
- Micahel Cristinziano, VP Strategic Development, Citrix
- Doug Smith, Dir Product Management, Taleo
- Malin Huffman, Head of Product Development, NetSuite
- Jerry Cuomo, CTO WebSphere, IBM
- Lee Congdon, CIO, RedHat
- Jeff Ragovin, Chief Revenue Officer, Buddy Media
- Peggy Fry, Chief Revenue Officer, Clearspring Technologies
- Mike Relm, Founder, Relmvision
- Bob Young, Founder & CEO, Lulu.com
- Donna DeMarco, Co-Founder & VP, Viddler
- Emily Keye, Marketing Strategist, Bronto
- Tammy Gordon, Dir Social Communications & Strategy, AARP
- Markus, Renstrom, Head of SEO, Yahoo!
- Dr. Manuel Aparicio, CEO & Co-Founder, Saffon Technologies
- Julianna DeLua, Enterprise Solutions Evangelist, Informatica
- Tony Haile, General Manager, Chartbeat
- Ryan Mannion, Chief Technology Officer, Politico
- David Giambruno, SVP and CIO, Revlon
- Gaurav Howard, Sr. Dir Product Marketing, Marketo
- Michael Lubek, CIO, GE Global Applications
- Angela Connor, Social Media Manager, Capstrat
- Ryan Allis, CEO, iContact
- Prerna Gupta, CEO, Khush
- Kevin Dando, Dir Digital & Education Communication, PBS
- Clint Smith, Co-Founder & CEO, Emma
- Matt Crenshaw, VP of Marketing, Discovery Communications
- Scott Gunter, VP of User Experience, Usability Sciences
- Lindsay Wassell, Partner & Consultant, KeyphraSEOlogy
- Steve Ashley, VP Internet Marketing, Market America
- Dennis Gullitto, APM Product Marketing Manager, Compuware
- Scott Baker, Sr. Mgr Virtualization & Cloud Engineering, NetApp
- Jeramiah Dooley, vArchitect, VCE/Cisco Virtualization
- Gerard Bush, Chief Creative Dir, The brpr Group
- Ted McDonald, Analyst, Verisign
- Rob Ousbey, VP Operations Seattle, Distilled
- David Gudai, VP of Marketing, Storkie
- Glenn Mersereau, Dir of Internet Marketing, PHE
- Jim Tobin, President, Ignite Social Media
- Kevin Pomplun, CEO, SkyGrid
- Sherry Bastion, Web Creative Director, Lenovo
- John Lovett, Sr Partner, Web Analytics Demystified
- Drew Diskin, Dir of Interactive & Web Strategy, Penn Medicine
- Lynette Montgomery, VP Ecommerce, Burt’s Bees
- Noah Dinkin, Co-Founder & President, FanBridge
- Jessica Bowman, SEOinhouse.com
- Todd Moy, Sr User Experience Designer, Viget Labs
- Donna Bedford, Global SEO Lead, Lenovo
- Francis Shepherd, Media Evangelist
- Dallas Lawrence, Chief Digital Strategist, Burson-Marsteller
- Karen Albritton, President, Capstrat
- Thuy LeDihn, Senior Marketing Manager, .ORG
- Adam Covati, Co-founder & CTO, Argyle Social
- Kyle Scott Richardson, Social Media, NC National Guard
- Cara Rousseau, Social Media Manager, Duke University
- Loren Baker, VP of Marketing, Blueglass
- Matthew Muñoz, Partner & Chief Design Officer, New Kind
- Jill Whalen, CEO, HighRankings
- Jason Caplain, General Partner, Southern Capitol Ventures
- David Heaney, Senior Associate, TomorrowVentures
- John Lawrence, Partner & CFO, Longworth Venture Partners
- Brooks Raiford, CEO, NCTA
- Roger Krakoff, Managing Partner, Cloud Capital Partners
- Charles Nicholls, Chief Strategy Officer, SeeWhy
- Jeff Campbell, VP & Co-Founder, Resolution Media
- Gary Storr, Business Architect & Solutions, Nortel
- Jeff Spivey, VP Board of Directors, ISACA
- Doug Hanna, CEO, A Small Orange
- Lisa, Braziel, Strategy Director, Ignite Social Media
- William Blackmon, CEO, LinkMein
- Chris Condayan, Public Outreach, Am Society for Microbiology
- Kyle Scott Richardson, Dir of Social Media, NC National Guard
- Jill Carlson, Marketing Manager, Argyle Social
- John Lane, VP Strategy & Creative, Centerline Digital
- Michael , Gowan, Associate Dir of Web Strategy, Duke Medicine
- Dana Kirchman, SVP Head of Client Operations, Lumi Mobile
Internet Summit is an outstanding learning experience mixed with prime networking opportunities and entertaining keynotes.
There’s even 5 additional hours of intense session digging deep into Social Media, SEO & Search, User Experience & Design and Analytics when you add the pre-conference to your registration.
Tags: AARP, Buddy Media, Capstrat, chartbeat, Clearspring Technologie, cloud computing, David Payne, David Perry, ecommerce trends, email marketing, ESPN, Gannett, Gary Vaynerchuk, Google, Howstuffworks, Internet Summit, Khush, Marshall Brain, measuring social, Microsoft, mobile presence, myYearbook, NC, NetSuite, Noah Everett, online advertising, paid search, Politico, Raleigh, Red Hat, reputation management, SAP, SEO, social media marketing, startup strategies, TheLadders, Twitpic, usability, web & mobile analytics, Yahoo
Posted in Amazon, Apple, Best Practices, Business advice, Carolinas, Cisco, Cloud, Education, entrepreneurship, Events, Facebook, games, Government/Defense, Internet/New Media, IT, Legal, LinkedIn, Marketing, Microsoft, Mobile, mobile games, North Carolina, smartphones, social media, Studies, surveys, reports, Tech Culture, TechLife, Telecommunications, video, Viewpoint | No Comments »
|
