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September 18, 2006
Why I Like Our Tremor Investment
Often in the past when I’ve been intimately involved with a new investment here at Masthead, I’ve written blog posts with my thoughts about it. (See previous posts on both NewsGator and Intercasting). Today Tremor Network announced an $8.4M investment co-led by Masthead Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, with Rich Levandov of Masthead and Warren Lee of Canaan joining Tremor’s board.
Simply put, Tremor is an online video advertising network. It provides publishers with a full suite of products and services to monetize streaming video, and gives advertisers the ability to utilize online video ads in their marketing mix. And I believe that the company has the opportunity to create a tremendous amount of value for three very basic reasons: the market, the team, and their approach.
The Market
Back in January of this year, I posted that "There’s no question that the basic premises – the who, what, where, when, and how – of consumers’ interaction with video content is dramatically changing, and that’s getting people excited." And in a subsequent post I wrote, "How far does digital online video roam? It depends on the available tools which help push it outwards. I think that the interesting startup opportunities are those in the infrastructure (like video advertising networks, publishing systems, editing/remixing services, and search technologies) which help facilitate and participate in the spread of that video content..." Tremor Network fits into this very thesis that there is significant opportunity for startups creating the supporting services which enable video online.
As events of this past year have demonstrated, we are at the beginning of a tremendous shift in the distribution methodology for video, transitioning from broadcast, cable, and DVD rental/sales towards the internet. And as audiences alter their consumption video choices towards an online outlet, all indications point to the fact that the advertiser spending will follow. This major media disruption will create the opportunity for a number of startups along the supporting infrastructure portion of the value chain, but most notably technology and services to make online video ad insertion possible. While the analyst forecasts of the near-term online video advertising market vary (I’ve seen eMarketer estimates that spending on online video ads will grow to $1.5B in 2009 and McKinsey projections that it will grow to between $1.4B and $3.2B in 2007), there’s little doubt that the long term opportunity in this area is a ripe one.
The Team
Founders Jason Glickman and Andrew Reis previously built and sold an advertising network, ContextualNet, and are bringing that experience to their current startup. Tremor’s technical founder, Jesse Chenard, has spent the majority of his career architecting online streaming video technology, so his expertise runs deep. Finally, along with the announcement of institutional investment, Tremor announced today the addition of Randy Kilgore as Chief Revenue Officer. Randy previously spent over sixteen years at Dow Jones & Company, most recently as SVP of Advertising for Dow Jones Online (which includes The Wall Street Journal Online and MarketWatch), and he will complement the team with his extensive experience working with and developing targeted solutions for advertisers.
The Approach
A final compelling reason why the Tremor investment is attractive is the company’s approach to the market. After unveiling its video ad network just over a year ago, Tremor has resonated with both advertisers and publishers alike, and has garnered significant traction with its services. With many companies announcing competitive offerings without any significant supporting technology in place, it is an extremely substantial asset that Tremor possesses cutting edge proprietary video and rich media technologies which are in place now. That proposition, coupled with the reality of positive feedback from publisher and advertiser relationships already established, has led the investor set to become confident that Tremor is going to continue build on its current positive momentum.
In short, I believe that the trends which have created this online ad network opportunity will consistently grow it in the next few years, and I am confident that Jason and his team will continue to effectively build upon what they’ve already successfully started.
Posted by at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (4)September 14, 2006
Are Your Employees Leaving? The Unintended Consquences of Shining Up that (Virtual) Resume
With many people I know through business relationships “connected” to me via LinkedIn, I occasionally use the service to see if I can track someone down via connections for diligence calls or to look up people’s backgrounds if I want some context for an upcoming conversation. And occasionally, I’ve been introduced to interesting entrepreneurs or others who have reached out to me through the service. In many circles, LinkedIn has become a standard way of keeping organized with and in touch of my business relationships.
However, recently I’ve noticed an interesting (presumably) unintended consequence of the service. When people are beginning the process of looking for a new job, they often update and enrich their LinkedIn profiles as they begin their search. When this happens, LinkedIn sends out e-mails to others in their network periodically letting people know that the profile has changed. (I assume that you can turn this function/”feature” off, but many people don’t.) Low and behold, anecdotally I’ve found there is a strong correlation between individuals updating their LinkedIn profile and announcing that they’ve moved on from their current positions a few weeks/months later. While obviously the fact that someone updates their profile doesn’t automatically mean they’re on the job hunt, I wonder if it’s going to increasingly become a tip-off to employers and current colleagues that someone is considering leaving. Or worse yet, will others misinterpret someone’s intentions if they do update their profile? Something to think about next time you dust off that virtual resume and touch it up.
September 13, 2006
Updates on New New Media
The most frequent commentary on this blog has been in the online space, but I’ve also kept a theme of “new new media” – additional emerging sets of digital media outlets which will provide new ways for advertisers to reach consumers (like in-game video advertising, digital signage, etc.). There are a couple of interesting trade articles this week which demonstrate that two of these other new digital advertising forms are continuing to develop.
First, the emergence of out-of-home networks. This MediaDailyNews article summarizes recent developments,
“…digital out-of-home networks are popping up everywhere from high-rise elevators to gas station pumps to public rest rooms, creating new places and states of mind for marketers to reach their consumer and business prospects. The growth is being spurred by a combination of entrepreneurial zeal from venue operators looking to tap the fast-growing advertising sector, as well as from increasing demand form advertisers and agencies seeking alternatives to traditional media…”
Of course, there’s some marketing hype baked into the article (like when one commentator says that “this is a market that is poised to explode”), but it is positive datapoint on a curve nonetheless.
The second is mobile advertising. This Advertising Age article notes a shift in thinking from the carriers,
“The carriers, after years of resistance, are opening their mobile-phone services to advertising… Sprint Nextel this week is expected to announce that it will allow ads on its deck -- the landing page for customers accessing the internet from cellphones on the Sprint network. In February, Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton said he's testing a program to open up cell service to advertising using a two-tier model, offering customers one service without ads and a cheaper, ad-supported service. Cingular is considering on-deck advertising, and is likely to have some advertising on its deck as soon as the end of the year. The ads are hardly an example of the most innovative mobile marketing taking place right now, but they do signal a willingness on behalf of carriers to work with advertisers.”
While many industry articles have noted stated that “concerns over consumer resistance to mobile ads also appear to have abated,” I personally would take a less aggressive tone and consider the recent announcements (like above and others like Enpocket signaling they have a carrier soon-to-be on board) as part of an evolution in thinking which will continue, rather than an about-face. Regardless, I think in the next couple years we’ll continually see an increasing number of advertisements on our mobile phones (like we already are today with ESPN’s WAP site) beyond the text-message mobile marketing common today.
As traditional media continues to lose consumers’ mind- & time- share and corresponding marketing effectiveness, what other digital avenues will materialize for advertisers to reach them?
September 1, 2006
The Challenges of SMO
Rohit Bhargava recently coined the phrase Social Media Optimization, or SMO. In contrast to refining websites with a goal towards organic search listings (Search Engine Optimization – SEO), this practice implements “changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.”
He outlines five rules which he advises clients in the context of SMO:
1. Increasing linkability.
2. Making tagging and bookmarking easy.
3. Rewarding inbound links.
4. Helping content travel.
5. Encouraging the mashup.
It’s worth clicking through to his original post to read it in detail and see others who have built upon it. Search engine guru Danny Sullivan (who announced his departure from SEW and SES this week) wrote in response “Conceptually, some of this stuff isn't new” but that “it’s worth considering.”
I personally see a tension for online marketers between traditional ways of building traffic through destination pages versus new methods in social spaces. While the former is site-driven the latter is individual-driven. When content is expressed and resyndicated via individuals, by definition it looses its roots. On one hand, that’s a good thing as it becomes untethered and free to roam; but on the other hand, it presents a challenge because it’s unharnessed and difficult to manage.
Danny Sullivan’s post about the Five Rules of SMO continues,
“For me, that's one of the biggest adjustments coming from the SEO world and into SMO, understanding that your presence can be in multiple places without being harmful… Generally in SEO, it's good advice to have one single web site that you point to. Build traffic to a common domain, rather than divide it among various places… With SMO, the adjustment is understanding that you have multiple places that while you don't own them still can be valuable to you.”
What solid ground can web marketers grasp onto when the social web has the world in flux? Is it true that “widgets are the new web pages,” as Hooman Radfar would have it? “The web ala carte”? They could provide the necessary link between content origination and manifestation via the individual, if the reality comes to bear which Fred Wilson predicts: “all of the functionality we currently have in social networks is going to emerge on the Internet at large.”
The SMO rules which have been coined above are helpful, but are definitely the first in a playbook that is still being written. And with some like Nicholas Carr trying to put “social software in perspective,” it’s safe to say that we shouldn’t throw out that SEO/SEM owner’s manual just yet.