Currently plying my trade at
Thought I’d share my Data & Online Advertising Ecosystem slide. You can also view on Slideshare at http://slidesha.re/5ht7cz . A little busy, but then again, so is this rapidly expanding space!
Did I miss your company or any other firms? Leave a note in the comments and I’ll add it in!
ACEDGE
Thought I’d get back in to long form blogging (new year res) with this post on the companies and niches I currently find most interesting if “I were looking for a job”…
I’ve broken them in to categories, please feel free to weigh in on the comments if I’ve missed any *YOU* think are up and coming:
(1) Real-time Data. This area is exploding and is also ripe for acquisition. These companies are dealing with immense, “web-scale” data, and, as a result have awesome opportunities for people to learn & grow on the cutting edge of the assembled web:
JS-Kit/Echo—Real-time commenting run by the fantastic Khris Loux. Work here if you can. ASAP!
Demand Media—Real-time? Yes, in their content creation approach. While we can debate the quality/quantity all we want, advertisers need relevant content and need it ASAP. Plus, it’s Richard Rosenblatt, enough said.
Adchemy—Changing banners in real-time is difficult enough, but landing pages along with it? And, bidding on the inventory on an impression basis? And, “De-averaging” as Murthy Nukala (CEO) likes to say? Forget about it…go work here and learn from the best.
(2) Consumer Web
Milo—Back end API’s, front end UI, and “real-world” practicality. Young leadership (could be opportunity for seasoned pros to join?), but great pedigree and obvious market strategy chops. This company is destined to be acquired.
BillShrink—OK, I work at Experian and we are biased to Lead-gen, and our own Matt Coffin put money into this one! Still Peter Pham rocks, as do their marketing partnerships. Join now, then go to work for Peter!
(3) Advertising
AppNexus—Sell side got all the love over the last few years as everyone tried to help the Publishers. What about where the money comes from? Yes, enter the “Demand side” platforms. These guys have it dialed in, as does the next company…
MediaMath—What’s in a name? Everything you need to know here. Online has always been for geeks, and this is as geeky as it gets. Real-time bidding, algorithmic buying. Direct mail has come a loooong way:-)
Look for Part II of this post for some other cool companies that I would jump at in a heartbeat if I was “looking for a job”. I’ll keep updating this post/blog in the coming year as I stumble on other cool companies as well (I promise, less 140 char and more long form!:-)
ACEDGE
Having spent the majority of my time in a Marketing, PR or Business Development capacity (for both start-up and F500 companies), you might think I’d have very little to say on the subject of IT, Technology platforms, the role of the CIO, etc in a job interview process! However, what is clear to me, as I’ve morphed into various new product development and “liason” roles between Marketing and IT over the years (primarily due to my knowledge of the Web and how it is affecting everything inside and out, for a particular company), is that we on the “business side” can no longer “sell” (market, develop, promote, etc) and leave the technology decisions to IT. Or, more pointedly, if you are not aware of the decisions they’ve made in recent years, the current state of the “platform”, and their attitude toward such things as “OPEN-ness”, “API’s”, “Enterprise (or external) 2.0 initiatives”, etc, you may find you are extremely hamstrung regardless of your “skills”. I’m hoping to compile a more complete list by leveraging the vast knowledge of “smart folks” out there, so please post if you have additional insights/questions. But, I thought, at the very least I’d compile a beginning list of questions to ask your potential employer in the interview. (A) It’s a good idea to demonstrate your familiarity and knowledge and (B) you may want to seriously re-think the offer if the answers come back in contrast to some popular trends. Without ado: (1) From a Partnership perspective, many new products will need to combine data or elements from each respective business. From an IT philosophy perspective, does [fill in company] subscribe more to proprietary development process or a more OPEN/standards based approach? How does this differ (if at all) from internal non-critical infrastructure components? What about critical components? (2) Do you have external acccessible API’s? If not, have you thought about this area and do you have any immediate plans to offer? Do you leverage API’s internally to allow new product configurations/development? (3) From an internal/Enterprise perspective, how many tools have been implemented for employee collaboration? What type of tools are they? How “forward-thinking” is the innovation process? Do product mgrs, others, have sandboxes for new product development? How quickly was the last innovation proto-typed? Developed? Tested? Deployed? How many 3rd party tools have been integrated into the Enterprise (portal, intranet, web site, etc)? (4) How many developers/engineers/programmers attend new (sales, business development, marketing, partner) meetings? How many attend “business” conferences? How many attend IT conferences? Which ones? Do you have a thought leadership position in your industry from a technical level as well as product level? (5) What “presence” does the company have on the Internet other than it’s website? How are comments/feedback incorporated into company from a technical perspective? Is this process automated? What tools do (marketers, sales, BD) have to gather data on product success? Customer feedback? As mentioned, certainly this is not an exhaustive list, and may not apply for all industries. But, increasingly, I find even the largest, most isolated industries need to adapt, partner, innovate and “institute flexibility”, and some of these answers will tell you if they truly believe that or are simply providing lip-service. Even in sales, I’d argue, that will affect you… Have other questions? Post and I’ll insert them here… ACEdge
Have been using Radian6 (http://www.radian6.com) recently and really like their interface/ease of use and ability to help me articulate the impact SM is having on our business! Great job guys! And, we’re making progress with a new FaceBook Brand page, thanks much to RoyalPink Productions, however, we are still struggling a fair amount with compliance and the main corporate blog site/rules. It’s tough for us, as a heavily regulated business, to set the proper review/approve process in place without seeming so stale in blog responses as to make the effort not worth it. We want to be “transparent”, but we’re also restricted from providing “advice” and much (if not all) of the questions we see posting online are due to an overall lack of education on our product. It will be a tough balance… Finally, props to MySpace for the work they’ve been doing under the hood. I can imagine how tough it is to see all the press for FB, and the traffic numbers! While, all the while building/re-building/adding slowly to make sure you have a scalable, sellable product. Kudos. I still use FB a lot more than MySpace, but I suspect that will slowly change soon… And, to Google TV reps for keeping it real in your pitches. “Beta” is just fine as long as you’re honest…And, to YouTube, for just keeping it plain fun! ACEdge
Or, perhaps I should say…Time flies when you are having so much fun. Apologies for no updates to the blog… Have been meeting with senior teams at Yahoo, and Facebook, and Myspace…Whew! How much more social can we get?? Still trying to figure out exactly the right blend between Direct Response, Branding and Engagement. It’s not an easy balance, especially for an established online brand such as ours! Soon, we are launching our “Points of Presence” as Chris Brogan calls them. We would have sooner, but we realy wanted to baseline our DR ads prior to layering in display or brand and engagement focused efforts. Now that we have the data, we think we’re ready to move! (I say think, because you never know what the lawyers/compliance officers will do at the 11th hour!). And, I am in a new group! My “digital media” team, as it were, has been shifted over under the Broadcast and Sponsorships group. A good idea, in my opinion, and one that should give us a tighter offline to online mix. Will post when we get our first combined campaign up…in the meantime, check out the winners of our Youtube video contest at http://www.freecreditreportband.com or visit the homepage of YouTube on January 28th! ACEdge
Chuck Hollis had an excellent post on the “Do-ers” vs. all the “Experts” who constantly fill the social media airwaves: http://chucksblog.emc.com/a_journey_in_social_media/2008/11/those-who-talk-vs-those-who-do.html.
Certainly, we need forward thinking bloggers who constantly assess and assimilate new technologies, offerings and business models. But, it certainly would benefit all of us, if more of the “Do-ers” posted or at least more of the “consultant” bloggers used specific examples. Even if you are prevented from using client names, you could genericize results and efforts. Something tells me, however, there are far more “experts” who like to pontificate than actually implement for clients! While, certainly, much of Web 2.0 is about the individual, and the top bloggers are exceptionally good at personal branding, few and far between are the blogs that help all of us implement!
So to all the “Do-ers” out there…Keep up the good “work”! And, if you can take a break from implementation every once in a while, let’s post some things! And, to the “experts”…go easy on those us who are trying to get things done. It isn’t easy turning back 80 years of social/business culture!
Alan
Having worked at one of the largest, and most tightly controlled, data repositories, it may be that I am biased. But, I see a clear role for a new breed of service companies to help facilitate the freeing up of large data assets in a manner that also works from a compliance & security (and, no doubt political) perspective. Not quite “middleware”, but rather ”middle service”…firms like Mashery, or widget application developers like JS-Kit, are needed to help provide a singular point of contact to the large data systems on the back-end and the rapid proto-typing, restful (and restless!) start-ups eager to mash-up the data and explore the “nooks & crannies” of various business models and ideas.
For example, one area that is desperately lacking is an “Affiliate Network” for application developers that includes not only affiliate payment commission tracking (and proper ad serving within the widgets) but also API key management and compliance monitoring. Commission Junction, Affiliate Fuel, are you listening? Banners ads are dead, long live the widgets!
One thing that also needs to be cleared, however, is ownership of the “platform” or connection technologies. Contracts should have flow-through rights that both enable the middle-service firms to retain long-term advantages, but provide legal and marketing relationships to the large firms as well…similar to how existing affiliate networks operate from a “relationship” perspective and DART from a technology angle.
Expecting large data repositories or firms engaged in businesses that generate large amounts of data, but where data dissemination is not their core business, to build the necessary API management, payment mechanisms, and developer network programs is just unrealistic (unless you are Google!). Third-parties will be critical in this process of bringing this “dark data” into the light, and linking in big data assets for the better of all.
ACEdge
So, we are precisely two days in to the release of our “Ed McMahon” series of videos that compliment our “traditional” FCR Band jingle commercials. While completely unplanned from a timing perspective, their release has coincided nicely with our YouTube cover song contest (of aforementioned jingles).
While we were careful (and contractually limited) not to link the Ed promotions to the contest directly, we did cross link accounts and micro-sites. And, are working on the generally accepted internet principle of more content = more activity across all properties. It seems to be raising awareness and both campaigns seem to be feeding off each other. However, we have yet to see any bloggers commenting on both campaigns or referencing each as a component of the other (or an overall strategy). We’ll see how that plays out. My initial take-away is that we *should* have been more dilligent with securing rights to Ed across media for *all* purposes, so we could have more flexibility with mash-up work.
On a related note, our YouTube homepage spot (an expensive proposition indeed) does seem to have been “worth it” in terms of exposure for and activity in, our contest. Probably would not have been as successful without it. This bodes well for YouTube as a “broadcast” medium for us. We’re stlll crunching the $/eyeball and activity numbers, but it looks promising (despite the hefty price tag). New initiatives of iTunes and T-shirt gadgets to help extend the brand and interactivity should also help. Also, *really* glad we engaged such a savvy blogger such as @Halcyon to handle our community outreach. If ever anyone doubts that talented community managers should *not* be part of the media budget, please email me directly. It is worth weight in gold.
More “results” to follow, of course we’re only 1/2 way through the show, with voting not set to begin until the week of 11/2. But, already we’ve received some very good, engaging covers of our ads, and it’s great to see folks engage with your brand like this….good stuff!
Stay tuned,
ACEdge
It’s alive! We’re finally rolling Ed out…huzzah!
ACEdge
Last month I posted about how we were implementing the mindset, and rigor, usually associated with traders or portfolio managers on Wall St. to our Account Executives/AM’s for their online marketing efforts. Well, we are one month in and making great strides! Today, not only did we implement and test everyone on the concepts and metrics around a Portfolio Improvement Index (basically an index of Revenue and Spend achievement vs. Orders) but introduced how we will shortly be introducing the notion of Risk as a mathmatical element in deal negotiating! Word.
Fantastic results: we are seeing more clearly which deals are profitable and which aren’t, and which partners introduce more volatility to our performance. I will be so excited, if we can actually achieve a perspective of online marketing such that we can create and effective Index for the overall internet and then, of course, be able to evaluate the Alpha and Beta of a particular partner, deal, placement or even creative! Can you imagine?
Ta-dow! (or should I say, Ta-DOW?:-)
Stay tuned for more results…
ACEdge
