Posted by: Olga Kharif on November 25
Launched on Nov. 25, British wireless service provider Giffgaff is focused on costs, and it plans to use its customers to slash them. The company, which uses O2's network, awards customers points for answering customer service calls, suggesting ways to grow revenues, and creating marketing materials. Currently, the MVNO is searching for people to impersonate Humphrey Bogart and to shoot and upload the video ads promoting the service to YouTube, for example. The points can be used toward calls.
It remains to be seen whether this approach works; it just might. Customers who are that involved in a service are likely to be very loyal, and that's an asset in any business, and especially in pay-as-you-go wireless services.
Telcos like T-Mobile already use the approach, called crowd-sourcing. GetSatisfaction.com, for example, lets telcos connect with their consumers that are having problems with the service, or to get the customers' take on how to solve a particular problem. It also supports direct customer-to-customer help. So Giffgaff isn't exactly reinventing the wheel, it's just pushing it forward.
Posted by: Cliff Edwards on November 25
Digital video recording pioneer TiVo just can't seem to shake its good news, bad news reputation.
Investors have found a lot to like about TiVo this year, bidding its stock up more than 50% to more than $10 a share. It has struck deals to add its best-in-class software to DirecTV set-top boxes, Comcast and other providers. It's won important patent-infringement lawsuits against Echostar's Dish Network, and is pursuing similar relief from AT&T and Verizon.
On Nov. 24, there was more good news. TiVo will develop a converged television and broadband interactive interface to power Virgin Media's next-generation, high-definition set top boxes, including non-DVR units.And it announced it had struck a deal to provide audience research data to Google for use in its TV ads platform.
But it was tempered by a third-quarter earnings report the same day that revealed the company continues its money-losing ways. True, the net loss of $6.7 million was better than management’s guidance range of loss of $8 million to $10 million. But revenue of $47.1 million was below consensus forecasts of $49.7 million. The company also lost a whopping 314,000 subscribers.
It's clear that 2010 will be a pivotal year for TiVo. It will need to bolster its armor by finally getting the long-delayed DirecTV HD TiVo onto the market. It will need to extract more licensing deals with set-top box makers around the world.
More important,it will have to invest millions more in engineering resources to upgrade a user interface that hasn't changed substantially in 10 years. With other companies moving to widgets and other pictorial interfaces that offer simpler navigation and search, the one-time innovator risks getting lost in the shuffle.
Posted by: Olga Kharif on November 25
On Nov. 24, Skype's chief operating officer, Scott Durchslag, announced he'll be leaving the Web-calling company. Chances are, this announcement is just the first of many executive changes to come now that new owners have taken charge of Skype.
The new owners include Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom, who likely has his own ideas about how to run the company and who should do the running, believe analysts. Some industry insiders believe Zennstrom would like to get into the driver seat himself. In the past, other Skype investors have told me they are happy with work current CEO Josh Silverman is doing, however.
But as six-year-old Skype tries to make it on its own again, instead of growing as part of the eBay conglomerate, its staff will inevitably change as will its culture. Its execs have long prided themselves on running the Web-calling enterprise as a start-up; now, however, they will have to live that start-up life for real.
Posted by: Olga Kharif on November 23
Even post its recent acquisition of AdMob, Google is far from dominant in mobile ads, though it does control the largest, 24% slice of the market, according to a Nov. 23 report from consultant IDC. Google and AdMob should report $68 million in mobile ad revenue this year, IDC estimates. But Millennial Media, with its $51 million in sales, is nipping at Google's heels. And Yahoo and Microsoft are firing on all cylinders in mobile ads as well.
Chances are, Google's acquisition will prompt additional purchases by its competitors, and they won't come cheap. "....both Yahoo! and Microsoft cannot afford to not also acquire either Millennial Media or Quattro Wireless, given that Google and AdMob's combined revenue will be more than twice that of Yahoo!'s and three times that of Microsoft's," writes analyst Karsten Weide. "The problem for both Yahoo! and Microsoft is that Google's valuation of AdMob of at least ten times 2009 worldwide revenue, more likely significantly more than that, will set Millennial's and Quattro's expectations: They could expect valuations of at least $550 million and $400 million, respectively."
Posted by: Rob Hof on November 23
If anyone doubted Google was serious about online display advertising, those doubts surely were quashed today. This morning, Google announced the acquisition of Teracent, a startup that helps advertisers format and more precisely target display ads to particular groups of people. In real time, Teracent can reformat ads based on geography, language, and other factors, so a single ad can be customized with thousands of variations.
Teracent, whose staff includes former executives of Yahoo and Google's DoubleClick, was widely seen as a likely acquisition by Google. Indeed, I talked with Teracent executives months ago and asked if an acquisition by Google was a possibility. Of course, their stock answer was that they're trying to build a company, yada yada, but they also made it clear that a takeout by Google was a distinct possibility. The company has raised about $5.8 million mainly from New Enterprise Associates.
The acquisition, small enough that Google isn't required to disclose its terms, is the latest in a series of moves the search advertising giant has made to become a power in display ads, the pictorial banners that support most Web sites. On Nov. 9, it announced plans to acquire mobile display ad firm AdMob for $750 million in stock. And in September, Google relaunched a long-awaited advertising exchange that grew out of its $3.2 billion purchase last year of the display ad firm DoubleClick.
Teracent probably won't be the last acquisition to bolster Google's display efforts. The moves come at a time when display ad leader Yahoo is struggling to right itself--and at a time when the recession has dealt display ads a heavy blow. Although Google recently has seen its search ad business improve after a slowdown for much of this year, display ads are seen as the next potential growth area for the company.
Here's the blog post from Neal Mohan, Google's vice president of product management, and engineering director Joerg Heilig:
Continue reading "Google Buys Teracent to Boost Display Ad Push"
