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I love the smell of Bollinger Bands Pinching in the morning!
Ok, have a good day!
sog
Intel puts focus around Napa
3/30/2005 2:55:43 PM - Dual-core chips to include enhanced graphics wireless features
by Vawn Himmelsbach
SAN FRANCISCO — Napa doesn't only refer to California's famous wine region — it's also the name of Intel Corp.'s next-generation mobility platform.
An extension of the Centrino\Sonoma technology, it will roll out in early 2006.
Napa will contain three enhancements, said Mooly Eden, general
manager of Intel's Mobile Platform Group: Yonah, Intel's first mobile dual-core CPU, as well as Calistoga (which will provide enhanced graphics) and Golan (which will provide better wireless access).
Napa will continue to focus on the "four vectors" of Intel's mobility strategy, he said, which includes improved performance (through Digital Media Boost), a smaller form factor (through Advanced Thermal Manager), longer battery life (through Smart Wireless Solutions) and wireless connectivity (through Dynamic Power Coordination).
Mobility is driving the requirement for more performance, said Sean Maloney, executive vice-president and GM of Intel's Mobility Group.
"Our strategy is to extend this to a range of different processors," he said. Phones are getting smarter, he added.
According to research firm IDC, sales of data phones are overtaking voice phones. Intel, for its part, is ramping up handset processor volume, taking a "top to bottom" approach in GPRS/EDGE/w-CDMA handset platforms.
Intel will target the low-end consumer space with its Hermon platform, while targeting higher-tier consumer and digital enterprise markets with the PXA27x and Hermon platforms.
In two or three years it's likely that users will be able to jump on and off high-speed networks, said Maloney. Intel's Centrino technology is moving toward a mobile environment where phones and notebooks are "aware" of each other's presence, he said, providing "one-button connect."
So what's next? "What you can do is deeply affected by how much bandwidth you have," he said.
Wi-Fi disappoints users when they lose the signal away from the hot spot. "You have to get coverage," he said. "It's the lesson of the cell phone industry."
Wi-Fi is the first global wireless networking standard, he said. But it has its limitations: Each hot spot typically provides network access for distances between 100 and 300 feet. Wi-Max, on the other hand, is expected to eventually provide mobile wireless broadband connectivity with a radius of three to 10 km, providing an alternative to cable and DSL for last-mile access.
Wi-Max will be the first global mobile broadband standard, said Maloney. "We need to be able to get a signal wherever we are." Some see this as hype, but Maloney noted there are 244 members in the Wi-Max Forum.
Computer Dealer News, March 18, 2005, Vol. 21. No. 4
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&lid=1&sid=58487&adBanner=Wireless#
Good afternoon to you and I agree alexandre...still have lots of dd to catch up on this upcoming month, but to me, on the speculative surface, one would have to make a strong argument that a Google would be very interested in our story/patents abilities and they have the cash to burn (and burn and burn and burn)...although on the flip side, 20% from a msft,yahoo, virgin type or even an intc would make an equally compelling argument.....ugh, the suspense is killing us, lol...are we all to confident???lol...NOT!
Have a good day....
sog
It appears on the surface that the last two months
Neomedia's PR's have come out on average every two weeks or so fwiw... http://www.neom.com/press_releases/pr_recent.jsp nonhteless, the analysis is interesting from kokonutguy and there is so much in the pipeline from the pieces everyone is pulling together that it shoud be an interesting spring period...
Have a good day and glta!
sog
From kokonutguy yesterday:
We have until next Wednesday to hear a PR news, which would give us the 16 days from the last PR. Most PRs (85%) are released within the 16 days time frame while the median day is 6 days between press releases. Something is coming, that's for sure.
old "location based" dd:
http://www.bell-labs.com/news/2003/january/buddies.html
Tangent dd: Invisible Inks & Barcodes
http://www.vlengineering.com/products/wizard_CT6.html
http://www.vtt.fi/intelligent/seminar_aug03/hakola.pdf
http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/19949.html
http://www.flying-null.com/News/Globalid.htm
http://emafoundation.org/file_depot/0-10000000/0-10000/2518/conman/Executive+Summary-PhaseII.pdf
ATTENTION NEOM MGT & Alexandre, Your post still "boggles my mind"...lol
Check this out:
http://www.cfhcc.org/GRAPHICS/I_Readers.pdf
OT,Full Moon Fever:Internet Ad Spending Up In First Quarter
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=28948
It would appear to me, that the more one takes a peek at online adverts/search/ whatever all this is "morphing into" (ie: Google) and the scrambling going on with Amazon, Intel,MSft and yhoo, etc that "navigation" "search as we know it from a pc" is about to become "disruptive" technology...lets just hope neom is there with "Da Stinking Bridge" ) Has anyone seen the bridge?...
sog
Featured Article... CodeWarrior - Strengthening Symbian OS Support - Nokia's buy out of the Metrowerks CodeWarrior tools for Symbian OS™ was greeted with a mixed reaction. Markus Ahonen Nokia's Product Manager for CodeWarrior tells us about where CodeWarrior for Symbian OS is going. (by Richard Bloor)
Very Good Year for 3G Cell Phone Shipments, but Down Year for Older Technologies forecasted
Written by Forward Concepts
Monday, 11 April 2005
Forward Concepts Forecasts a Very Good Year for 3G Cell Phone Shipments, but a Down Year for Those of Older Technologies
TEMPE, Ariz.--April 11, 2005--Forward Concepts has announced the publication of an in-depth study of the worldwide cell phone market and the chips that go into them. The new 560-page study, "Global Cellular Handset & Chip Markets," is an extensive analysis and forecast of the market. In addition to detailed forecasts (by technology and by region) of handsets, chips and subscribers (by country), the study profiles cell phone OEMs, ODMs, cellular operators and the key chip vendors.
In addition to handset and chip forecasts by technology (2G, 2.5G, 3G, HSDPA, 3.5G) and global region, the report provides estimates of the market shares of the 40 major cell phone vendors, the market shares of the top cell phone chip vendors for digital basebands, analog basebands/power management, RF transceivers, RF power amplifiers, application processors, camera sensors, Bluetooth and color display drivers.
The study concludes that 2004 cell phone shipments reached a record 715 million units, including inexpensive PHS/PAS units in China. The study projects that 2005 overall unit sales will increase only by 4.5% to the 746-million level as larger markets for older technologies decline, offsetting strong gains by newer technologies. For example, older TDMA shipments are projected to fall by 30% and even traditional GSM shipments will decline by a projected 23% this year.
On the other hand, cell phones addressing newer high-bandwidth technologies will grow sharply. EDGE cell phones will grow by 51% to the 60-million unit level, WCDMA cell phones will grow by 165% to the 45-million level and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO terminals (cards and handsets) will grow by 65% to 16-million units. Although being rapidly displaced in Japan by newer technologies, cell phones based on 2G Personal HandyPhone service (PHS) are projected to grow by 24% to the 77-million level as the inexpensive units gain ground in China, Taiwan, India and other countries.
According to the principal author, Carter L. Horney, "Our assessment is that Texas Instruments remains the number-one cellular chip provider, overall, and also the number-one provider of baseband chips for both 2G and 3G/UMTS cellular. And, with their OMAP2 application processor, they have quickly become number one in that market segment as well. TI can't be complacent though, since Qualcomm still dominates the CDMA market and has a large number of design-ins for its UMTS baseband chips. Freescale Semiconductor had a very good year in 2004 and is also gaining ground in the cellular chip market."
Will Strauss, Forward Concepts' president and editor/contributor for the report, said, "The cellular handset has become the physical and market magnet that is pulling in the functionality of digital cameras, PDAs, MP3 players, GPS navigation, Bluetooth and even Wi-Fi, and is quickly becoming the dominant market for each and all of these functions and more. This market study explores the market dynamics of each of these functions and the cell phone chip prospects for each of them."
The 560-page study, "Global Cellular Handset & Chip Markets," includes 110 figures and 105 tables, and is available from Forward Concepts for $3,750 (North America) in hard copy and in electronic form under a global enterprise license for $7,500. Details are on the company's Web site at www.forwardconcepts.com/handsets.
AD:TECH San Francisco 2005 Exhibitor Profiles
SAN FRANCISCO --(Business Wire)-- April 21, 2005 -- AD:TECH San Francisco takes place April 25 - 27, 2005 at the Marriott San Francisco in San Francisco, CA. For in-depth information about the event visit http://www.ad-tech.com/default.asp.
Below are profiles from AD:TECH San Francisco exhibitors; breaking news releases are available at http://www.tradeshownews.com, Business Wire's trade show, conference and event news resource. Business Wire is the official news wire service for AD:TECH San Francisco. -0- *T Company: Accipiter Solutions, Inc. Booth: 107 Media Contact: Shawn Ramsey-Kroboth; shawn@srkcommunications.com; 919-359-0947 or 919-621-0737 (cell) Investor Relations Contact: Brian Handly; bhandly@accipiter.com; 919-719-4550 or 919-306-1529 (cell) Phone: +1 919.719.4550 E-mail: info@accipiter.com Company URL: www.accipiter.com Press Area URL: http://www.accipiter.com/news/ *T
Accipiter, an online advertising technology leader since 1996, empowers Web publishers and media networks to maximize revenue and reduce operating costs through innovative online ad management and behavioral targeting technologies. Accipiter's AdManager solutions provide effective campaign management and optimization, accurate inventory forecasting, up-to-the-minute reporting, precise audience targeting, and the ability to easily deliver and track any rich media format, all in real-time. Accipiter's Visitor Interest Behavioral Targeting Engine (VIBE) increases the value of available inventory by extending campaigns to high-valued visitors anywhere on a Web site. By tracking, analyzing, and reporting visitor activities, VIBE determines if a visitor is a good prospect for a timely targeted promotion. -0- *T Company: AOL Media Networks Ticker Symbol: TWX Booth: 301 Media Contact: Ruth Sarfarty 212-652-6360 Phone: 1-866-INFO-TWX E-mail: ir@timewarner.com Company URL: www.aolmedianetworks.com Press Area URL: http://corp.aol.com/index.shtml *T
Company Description: AOL Media Networks represents an array of interactive brands, offering some of the Web's most compelling experiences for audiences and marketers. Our 50+ online properties reach 104 million* consumers and include everything from the flagship AOL service to premier Web brands such as AIM, CNN.com, Moviefone,
Netscape, Parenting.com, and People.com. As a longtime leader in interactive, we have developed a rich understanding of consumers' online behavior and built deep relationships with audiences by making our products highly relevant to their everyday lives. We are committed to leveraging these insights and relationships on behalf of marketers through creative, customized solutions. -0- *T Company: Aptimus, Inc. Ticker Symbol: NASDAQ: APTM Booth: 76 Media Contact: Holly Nuss Investor Relations Contact: John Wade Phone: (415) 896-2123 ext 209 Email: hollyn@aptimus.com Company URL: www.aptimus.com Press area URL: http://www.aptimus.com/gen.asp?page_id=pressroom *T
Product description: Aptimus offers a performance-based advertising network that generates new revenues for Web site publishers while generating high-quality sales leads for advertisers. At the core of the Aptimus Network is the company's Dynamic Revenue Optimization(TM) technology, which automatically determines where ads are performing best and dynamically rotates them across the network.
Company description: Aptimus is the leading provider of performance-based marketing services. Aptimus believes that the Internet is the most important medium for generating leads and acquiring customers. The company offers a performance-based advertising network that generates superior revenues-per-impression and solid advertising results. Aptimus was founded in 1996 as Freeshop.com and became Aptimus in 2001. -0- *T Company: Business.com Booth/Stand: 406 Media Contact: Wendy Aldrich - waldrich@business.com Investor Relations Contact: Mark Mazzei Phone: 310-586-4111 E-mail: mmazzei@business.com Web: www.business.com *T
Product description: Business.com is the search engine designed and organized exclusively for business. Business.com uses a proprietary taxonomy and classification system consisting of over 400,000 listings within 65,000 industry, product and service subcategories to help advertisers generate profitable leads. The Business.com network includes partners such as Forbes.com, BusinessWeek, Inc.com and Internet.com.
Company description: Founded in 1999 by eCompanies and based in Santa Monica, CA, Business.com serves the needs of more than 3 million business searchers each month across a wide array of industries and job functions. Business.com reaches another 38 million through its distribution network. -0- *T Company: Commission Junction Booth/Stand: 215 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: Nasdaq: VCLK Media Contact: PR@cj.com Investor Relations Contact: Gary Fuges Phone: (818) 575-4540 E-mail: gfuges@valueclick.com Web: www.cj.com *T
Company description: Commission Junction, a ValueClick company, provides advanced performance marketing solutions that help marketers increase online leads and sales. By facilitating strategic relationships between advertisers and publishers, Commission Junction leverages its proven expertise in affiliate marketing, partner marketing, and search marketing to drive measurable results for its clients. -0- *T Company: comScore Networks Booth/Stand: 516 Media/Investor Relations Contact: Graham Mudd Phone: 312.775.6490 E-mail: gmudd@comscore.com Web: www.comscore.com *T
Company description: comScore Networks provides unparalleled insight into consumer behavior and attitudes. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore explicit permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. -0- *T Company: Dark Blue Sea LTD Ticker Symbol: DBS.AX Booth: 413 Media Contact: Andrew Wright (a.wright@au.darkbluesea.com) Investor Relations Contact: Richard Moore (r.moore@au.darkbluesea.com) Phone: +61 (0)7 3007 0000 Email: enquiries@darkbluesea.com Company URL: www.darkbluesea.com *T
Product description: Dark Blue Sea has developed an integrated platform of complementary products and services to ensure the performance of our direct navigation traffic is maximized for advertisers. Roar.com, a PPC contextual advertising network and DarkBlue.com, a CPA based affiliate network, work with Fabulous.com, a domain registration, management and monetization service.
Company description: Dark Blue Sea Ltd is the leading supplier of online direct navigation traffic to advertisers. Our traffic supply is sourced from our own portfolio of 400,000 generic domains and is complemented by 600,000 third party domains managed by our primary product, Fabulous.com. -0- *T Company: Direct Response Technologies Booth: 101/103 Media/Investor Relations Contact: Jason Wolfe CEO/President Phone: 412-921-6881 E-mail: jason.wolfe@directresponse.com Web: www.directresponse.com *T
Company description: Direct Response Technologies, Inc. is a technology and media company. Direct Response Technologies, Inc. provides technology tools to enable clients to track and manage all of their online media from one solution, with one interface, on a private label basis. Keyword bid management, ROI tracking, ad serving, affiliate tracking, coupon delivery, newsletter and email delivery, and more. As an added benefit of using our Direct Response Technologies tracking and management suite, you can publish your campaigns through our media network, to expand your reach. Our online services can be located at DirectTrack.com, KeywordMax.com, GiftCards.com, MyCoupons.com, and DirectLeads.com -0- *T Company: eXact Advertising Booth/Stand: 211 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: Media/Investor Relations Contact: Sarah Hofstetter Phone: 646-432-4899 E-mail: press@exactadvertising.com Web: www.exactadvertising.com *T
Product description: Search Engine Marketing (Paid Placement, Paid Inclusion, Natural Search) Direct Mail (Co-Registration, Lead Generation, Permission-based email) Contextual Paid Listings.
Company description: eXact is a leading diversified online marketing company focused on delivering measurable, targeted results to clients who wish to improve the effectiveness and measurability of advertising efforts. eXact specializes in Search Engine Marketing, Lead Generation, Contextual Network delivery, and Paid Listings. -0- *T Company: Fastclick Ticker Symbol: FSTC Booth: 400 Media Contact: Trey Clark Investor Relations Contact:ir@fastclick.com Phone: 805.568.5334 E-mail: info@fastclick.com Company URL: www.fastclick.com Press Area URL: http://www.fastclick.com/co_press-events.html *T
Company description: Fastclick (NASDAQ: FSTC) is a leader in online direct response marketing services, providing optimization ad-delivery technology and services designed to maximize advertisers' return on investment. The Fastclick Ad Network delivers targeted advertising and reached over 119 million unique U.S. Internet users in March 2005 (comScore Media Metrix) through a network of more than 8,000 third-party websites. For more information about Fastclick, visit www.fastclick.com or call (805) 568-5334. -0- *T Company: FindWhat.com Booth/Stand: 500 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: FWHT Media Contact: Jodi Maher Investor Relations Contact: Peter Weinberg Phone: 239/561-7229 E-mail: JodiM@FindWhat.com Web: www.FindWhat.com *T
Product description: FindWhat.com offers two excellent advertising options. First, our pay-per-click advertising service which drives highly targeted leads to your website. Pay only when someone clicks on your ad. Second, you have access to a pioneering pay-for-performance lead generation service--pay-per-call! With pay-per-call, you only pay when someone calls you.
Company description: FindWhat.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: FWHT) is a global leader in developing and providing performance-based marketing and commerce enabling services that help businesses grow. FindWhat.com's marketing services include the FindWhat.com Network(TM), Espotting Network and FindWhat.com Private Label. -0- *T Company: Global Resource Systems, Inc. (GRS) Booth: 412 Media Contact: Danay Escanaverino Phone: 954-577-3033 ext. 224 E-mail: danay@grscorp.com Company URL: www.grscorp.com Press Area URL: www.grscorp.com/press.aspx *T
Product description: GRS will host a poker tournament on April 26 at the Marriott SF View Lounge to promote the public launch of their affiliate network, Filinet (www.filinet.com (http://www.filinet.com/). The winner will score a seat playing against the pros in a World Poker Tour Main Event. Filinet has been pairing up advertisers with affiliates since 2003, providing real-time tracking, reporting, SPAM filter scoring technology and personalized service. Interested attendees can visit www.grspoker.com/grs for details on entering the tournament.
Company Description: Global Resource Systems, based in Plantation, FL, is a leading provider of interactive marketing solutions through three business units. GRS (www.grscorp.com) provides strategic marketing services including SEM and media buying. OEN (www.optinemailnetwork.com) is an email service provider and list management service featuring state-of-the-art delivery and reporting systems. Filinet is the affiliate marketing network. -0- *T Company: Hydra Media Booth/Stand: Table 6 Media Contact: Zac Brandenberg Investor Relations Contact: Adam Wicks Walker Phone: 310-659-5755 E-mail: adam@hydramedia.com Web: www.hydramedia.com *T
Product description: Hydra Network (formerly known as LynxTrack) is one of the leading performance-based advertising networks. Specializing in CPA & CPL and heavy on high-conversion site and compliant email publishers, Hydra Network brings together all top affiliate offers, dozens of high-paying exclusives and many unique lead generation properties. Hydra is also one of the largest email data managers and operates many standalone e-commerce businesses.
Company description: Hydra Media was established in 2002 by pioneers of the Internet advertising and marketing space. Hydra Media leverages the continuing migration of consumers to the new media across several business operations built upon a strategic foundation of direct marketing, including performance-based affiliate marketing, email data management and standalone ecommerce businesses such as YourStar.com and AdvancedPetProducts.com. -0- *T Company: icrossing Booth/Stand: 604 Media Contact: David Berkowitz, 646-346-8343 Phone: 866.620.3780 E-mail: david.berkowitz@icrossing,com Web: www.icrossing.com *T
Product description: icrossing serves its clients with Search Intelligence(TM), Natural Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Management, Search Analytics, and Applied Search(TM).
Company description: Search engine marketing agency icrossing has been connecting businesses with qualified customers through the medium of search since 1998. Today, icrossing applies its experience, technology, and unparalleled client service to many of the leading brands around the world. With its dedicated focus on search engine marketing, icrossing continuously pioneers new and better ways to help clients meet and surpass their goals through customized solutions. -0- *T Company: IMPAQT Booth/Stand: 407 Media Contact: Ann Shannon Phone: 978-474-1900 E-mail: IMPAQT@pancomm.com Web: www.impaqt.com *T
Product description: The IMPAQT Intelligent Landing Page (ILP), designed to work with paid search, will allow companies to dynamically deliver a targeted rich media landing page containing multiple video, audio and/or interactive Flash applications when the searcher selects a Paid keyword ad. The ILP automatically captures both click-stream and on-page analytics in real time as the searcher enters and interacts with the page.
Company description: Founded in 1999, IMPAQT provides a comprehensive blend of data integration, proprietary tools and consulting to enable more informed decisions for its clients. The company has been at the forefront of change within the industry, going beyond traditional search engine marketing by utilizing advanced business performance and business intelligence technologies to maximize corporate opportunities. -0- *T Company: IndustryBrains, Inc. Booth: 606 Media Contact: Elke Wong, VP Marketing and Product Development Investor Relations Contact: Erik Matlick, CEO and President Phone: (212) 209-3321 E-mail: elke@industrybrains.com Company URL: http://www.industrybrains.com Press Area URL: http://www.industrybrains.com/press.aspx *T
Product description:
Advertisers Solutions
IndustryTargets: Site-Specific, Contextual-category ad placement on premium content sites like BusinessWeek, Forbes, CMP TechWeb, Ziff Davis' eWeek, Golf.com, USATODAY.com
IndustrySearch: Listings are delivered whenever a customer performs a search on keywords. Advertisers pay only for the click.
Publisher Solutions
Contextual & Search solutions for premium content publishers for monetizing content and maintain value of their brand.
Real-time tracking and reporting allow publishers to manage advertiser relationships and optimize revenue
Company description: IndustryBrains is the leading provider of performance marketing solutions for Advertisers & Publishers. We connect qualified buyers with sellers via pay-per-click advertising programs, including Search Listings and Contextual Category Advertising. The IndustryBrains Platform delivers advertiser listings to premium publisher websites including: BusinessWeek, Forbes.com, USATODAY.com, Infoworld, Computerworld, PCMag.com, EETimes, etc. -0- *T Company: Kaboose Inc. Booth/Stand: 409 Media Contact: Jonathan Graff Investor Relations Contact: Jason DeZwirek Phone: 416-593-3000 Web: www.kaboose.com *T
Product description: Kaboose encompasses three award-winning online properties that have captured a worldwide following - Funschool.com, Zeeks.com and KidsDomain.com. Collectively, these high-traffic destinations have established Kaboose as a leading, family oriented online media company in the North American and international marketplaces.
Company description: Kaboose is a top 10 global Internet destination for kids and parents, delivering entertaining and informative interactive content to millions of people every month. -0- *T Company: Kellysearch.com Booth: 64 Media Contact: Eric Seymour, Bridgeman Communications Phone: 617-742-7270 eMail: eric@bridgeman.com Company URL: www.kellysearch.com *T
Product Description: Kellysearch.com is the world's largest industry-to-industry search engine, allowing users to search more than 150 thousand product categories from 2 million plus suppliers around the world, or in the next town. Users never have to register and have free access to company descriptors, products, services and keyword-searchable online catalogs.
Company Description: Launched in January 2001 Kellysearch.com is a comprehensive online buyers' guide and search engine, with more than two million company listings from over 155 countries world wide. Kellysearch.com is backed by the financial resources of the world wide publishing company Reed Elsevier. With an average of 14 million searches a month, Kellysearch.com is the leading global search engine for industry-to-industry business. For more information, please contact Kellysearch.com at 1-800-550-0827, or visit www.kellysearch.com. -0- *T Company: Kontera Technologies Booth/Stand: 309 Media Contact: Eileen McSweeney Investor Relations Contact: Assaf Morag Phone: 650-544-7320 E-mail: amorag@ezula.com Web: www.kontera.com *T
Product description: Contextual advertising solutions for online advertisers and publishers.
Company description: Kontera Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of Internet-based real-time contextual solutions, and the first to introduce to the advertising market the concept of creating sponsored links from in-text keywords. Kontera's flagship product DynamiContext(tm) is the most comprehensive contextual-based platform that exists in the market. -0- *T Company: LinkConnector.com Booth/Stand: 105 Media Contact: Jackie Bates Investor Relations Contact: Choots Humphries Phone: 919.468.5150 E-mail: lc.pr@linkconnector.com Web: http://www.linkconnector.com *T
Product description: Naked Link Technology(TM) offers merchants the ability to transparently run an affiliate program, leading to an increase of inbound links to their site. In turn, this can significantly boost organic search engine rankings. Virtual Affiliate(TM) tracking allows merchants to track, in real time, virtual affiliates such as organic search engines.
Company description: LinkConnector is an Affiliate Marketing Network, helping merchants and affiliates increase online sales. LinkConnector is redefining affiliate marketing with its ground-breaking technologies, Naked Link Technology(TM) and Virtual Affiliate(TM) tracking. Equipped with LinkConnector's new tools, including advanced ROI tracking, merchants can take their organic and paid search campaigns to new levels. -0- *T Company: Magic Jupiter Booth/Stand: 316 Media/Investor Relations Contact: Nick Fehlberg Phone: 866/869-4612 E-mail: bizdev@magicjupiter.com Web: www.MagicRankings.com *T
Product description: Magic Rankings - the control panel for professional publishers displaying over 600 offers from 80 networks across 65 categories. Magic Jupiter's ranking technology delivers profitability performance data based on hundreds of weekly publisher surveys, and controlled independent benchmark testing.
Company description: Magic Jupiter is the independent 3rd party testing and verification agency trusted by leading networks and their publishers, delivering profitability benchmark data on advertiser offers for the Pay-For-Performance (P4P) industry. -0- *T Company: Mediaplex Booth/Stand: 217/219 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: VCLK, NASDAQ Media Contact: Tony Winders Investor Relations Contact: Gary Fuges Phone: 818.575.4500 E-mail: twinders@valueclick.com Web: www.mediaplex.com *T
Product description: MOJO suite of products:MOJO Adserver-third party ad serving for advertisers and agenciesMOJO Publisher-ad management for online publishersMOJO Mail-email campaign management and deliveryAdVault suite of products for agency management (Financials and Production) and media management (Network, Local Broadcast and Print)Content Depot for Digital Asset Management
Company description: Mediaplex provides technology and services that help advertisers, agencies, and Web site publishers manage their online advertising and permission-based email campaigns. Additionally, Mediaplex provides the AdVault suite of softwareand services that help advertising agencies and other companies operate their businesses more efficiently, through effective agency management, media management, and content management solutions. -0- *T Company: Mirror Image Internet, Inc. Booth/Stand: 26 Media Contact: Catherine Allen Phone: (617) 681-1227 E-mail: catherine@shiftcomm.com Web: www.mirror-image.com *T
Product description: With a powerful global network dedicated to providing reliable content and application delivery to users around the world, Mirror Image has the answer. Our Content Delivery, Streaming Media and Web Computing solutions empower customers to utilize the Web to solve business issues in less time and at a lower cost than ever before. We'll help you maximize revenue opportunities, reduce infrastructure expenses and optimize customer satisfaction.
Company description: Mirror Image(R) Internet, a global network for online content, application and transaction delivery, provides solutions that offer customers a smarter way to create more engaging Web experiences for users worldwide. -0- *T Company: OmniTI Computer Consulting, Inc. Booth: 506 Media/Investor Relations Contact: Barry Abel Phone: 410 872 4910 ext 312 Email: barry.abel@omniti.com Company URL: www.omniti.com *T
Product Description: Ecelerity(R) is the industry's first true high performance email application server. This highly scalable architecture delivers the fastest and most comprehensive email framework on the market today, boasting unparalleled manageability, performance and extensibility. A fully standards-compliant (MTA), Ecelerity delivers an immediate ROI reducing operating overhead by as much as 70%.
Company Description: OmniTI is a leader in email infrastructure solutions for corporate enterprises, marketers and service providers, recognized as the premier software solution addressing the challenges of email deliverability. OmniTI solutions include Ecelerity(R) email application server, our EDGE email security appliances for carrier class, corporate and SMB requirements and expert professional services. -0- *T Company: SearchAdNetwork Booth/Stand: 11 Media/Investor Relations Contact: Andrew Beckman Phone: 303.291.6982 E-mail: abeckman@searchadnetwork.com Web: www.searchadnetwork.com *T
Product description: SearchAdNetwork strategically positions the launch of your search engine marketing campaign to immediately focus on your acquisition goals and constantly optimizes to increase your ROI.
Company description: SearchAdNetwork is the leading authority for search engine marketing. Our extensive experience and advanced proprietary optimization and PPC management technology guarantees the highest return on investment (ROI) for your search engine marketing campaign(s). -0- *T Company: Singer Direct Booth/Stand: 620 Media Contact: Paul Thau Investor Relations Contact: Jeff Singer Phone: (914) 472-7100 E-mail: pthau@SingerDirect.com Web: www.SingerDirect.com *T
Product description: Why pay for visitors, when what you really want are customers? The online media division of Singer Direct specializes in Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) deals via the Internet, in which advertisers pay only for orders, leads, registrations, inquiries, or any other form of measurable action.
Company description: The online media division of Singer Direct specializes in Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) deals via the Internet, in which advertisers pay only for orders, leads, registrations, inquiries, or any other form of measurable action. -0- *T Company: SmartSearch Marketing Booth/Stand: 25 Media Contact: Becky Schol, bschol@comcast.net Investor Relations Contact: Dale Hursh Phone: 1-866-644-3134 E-mail: Dale@SmartSearchMarketing.com Web: www.SmartSearchMarketing.com *T
Product description: SmartSearch Marketing helps clients throughout the United States maximize their search engine marketing investments through search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, paid inclusion and Web site conversion services. SmartSearch guarantees its pre-established cost-per-lead and cost-per-customer goals and monthly spending limits. Clients get big agency results without big agency prices.
Company description: SmartSearch Marketing is a full-service search engine marketing agency based in Boulder, Colo., that helps clients throughout the country generate leads, acquire customers and position brands online. Founded in 1999, SmartSearch Marketing is known for its unique marketing perspective and traditional search engine marketing expertise. -0- *T Company: SoftCoin, Inc. Booth:18 Media Contact: Armen Najarian, Director, Product Management 650/624-3817, anajarian@softcoin.com Phone: 650.624.3800 E-mail: pr@softcoin.com Company URL: http://www.softcoin.com Press Area URL: http://corp.softcoin.com/company/co_pressroom.html *T
Product description: SoftCoin's BrandConnect(TM) Loyalty Platform, a suite of complementary technology and service components, provides brand marketers the tools to address important business objectives. The hosted solution enables brands to easily launch a variety of strategic and tactical interactive marketing programs, and provides unprecedented views into these programs via advanced reporting capabilities.
Company description: SoftCoin(R), Inc. is the leading provider of interactive marketing solutions for the consumer packaged goods industry.
SoftCoin converts offline purchases into online brand relationships, delivering measurable revenue increases, engaged, loyal consumers, and reduced program costs. SoftCoin has powered over 50 programs for leading brands including Revlon, Sara Lee, and Welch's. -0- *T Company: Undertone Networks Booth/Stand: 408 Media Contact: Darsen Campbell Investor Relations Contact: Darsen Campbell Phone: (212) 576-2012 E-mail: info@undertone-inc.com Web: www.undertonenetworks.com *T
Product description: Undertone Networks offers a broad range of ad formats including transitions. Transitions are a nearly full-page ad that appears between Web pages and displays for 7-10 seconds. In addition, Undertone has relationships with leading technology vendors that enable the company to offer a broad range of rich media products.
Company description: Undertone Networks is one of the largest and most reputable online advertising networks in the industry. Through partnerships with today's top media properties, Undertone reaches more than 65 million unique Internet users each month. Undertone offers a variety of ad formats that range from standard in-page ad units to cutting edge formats including interstitials and rich media. -0- *T Company: ValueClick Media Booth/Stand: 217/219 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: Nasdaq: VCLK Media Contact: Tony Winders Investor Relations Contact: Gary Fuges Phone: 818-575-4540 E-mail: gfuges@valueclick.com Web: http://media.valueclick.com *T
Product description: ValueClick Media is a leading online advertising network, providing brand advertising and direct marketing solutions for advertisers, agencies and publishers. Through its ValueClick Brand and ValueClick Direct groups, ValueClick Media provides marketers with a wide range of distribution methods to drive awareness, leads and sales, including web-based advertising, co-registration, e-mail and pay-per-click search.
Company description: ValueClick Media is the brand advertising and direct marketing division of ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK). Through its ValueClick Brand and ValueClick Direct groups, ValueClick Media leverages the extensive reach and efficiency of the ad network model to provide marketers with a wide range of distribution methods to drive awareness, leads and sales, including web-based advertising, co-registration, e-mail and pay-per-click search. -0- *T Company: ValueClick Search Booth/Stand: 217/219 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: Nasdaq: VCLK Media Contact: Tony Winders Investor Relations Contact: Gary Fuges Phone: 818-575-4540 E-mail: gfuges@valueclick.com Web: http://media.valueclick.com *T
Product description: ValueClick Search features two pay-per-click search networks, including: Search123 - Allows advertisers to list their sites, bid on keywords and receive targeted search traffic from hundreds of high quality content sites, directories and search engines.Simpli - ValueClick Search's premium paid search network sources traffic through Simpli.com and individual sites where Simpli enables the entire search experience.
Company description: ValueClick Search is the pay-per-click search marketing division of ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK) and provides advertisers with highly targeted search traffic from its Search123 and Simpli paid search platforms. Advertisers can extend the reach and improve the effectiveness of their search marketing campaigns by accessing new sources of search traffic from high quality publisher partners across the ValueClick Search networks. -0- *T Company: Vertrue Incorporated Booth/Stand: 508 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: VTRU Phone: 203-674-7100 Web: www.vertrue.com *T
Product description: Vertrue offers the consumer programs with a combination of everyday savings, event oriented discounts and peace-of-mind benefits at leading, brand-name merchants and service companies. Our value-packed programs are available to our marketing partners for use as loyalty or fee-based membership programs.
Company description: Vertrue is an integrated marketing services company that gives consumers unrivaled opportunities to improve their lives through exclusive access to significant discounts and unique services. Our consumer-based membership and loyalty programs, as well as proprietary Internet and telephone-based technologies, create multi-channel venues for our clients and marketing partners to generate incremental revenue and enjoy enhanced loyalty. -0- *T Company: WebSourced, Inc Booth/Stand: 321 Ticker Symbol & Exchange: Amex: THK Media Contact: Andy Beal Investor Relations Contact: Gerry Jacobs Phone: 919-433-3000 E-mail: andy@websourced.com Web: www.KeywordRanking.com *T
Product description: Full search engine marketing solutions. Search engine optimization, paid search management and interactive advertising.
Company description: WebSourced's KeywordRanking.com is the world's largest and most successful search engine marketing company. Our 145+ employees offer the very best in expertise, experience and customer service to more than 1,400 satisfied clients, including Motorola, CitiFinancial, NBC, DeWALT and Black & Decker. Our professional approach to search engine marketing ensures that nearly 100% of our clients enjoy top search engine positioning, using spam-free technology. -0- *T Company: Who's Calling Booth/Stand: 205 Media Contact: Cheryl Delgreco Phone: 617-723-4004 E-mail: cdelgreco@comcast.net Web: www.whoscalling.com *T
Product description: Who's Calling and partner ClickPath are rolling out the first solution that bridges telephony and the online world -- enabling online advertisers to qualify, measure and optimize call traffic by dynamically inserting tracked phone numbers into any web page and linking call data back to search engine key words or any other online ad source.
Company description: Founded in 1998, Who's Calling is privately held and a leading provider of services that overcome sales transaction obstacles with hard-hitting, strategic services that deliver immediate measurable results. Who's Calling pairs patented measurement and monitoring tech, sales and lead management services, call recording and monitoring, Web-based and marketing services with research and results-driven methodology that increases sales effectiveness. -0- *T Company: webloyalty.com Booth/Stand: 204 Media Contact: Martin Isaac Investor Relations Contact: Rick Fernandes Phone: 203.846.3300 E-mail: shane@webloyalty.com Web: http://www.webloyalty.com *T
Company description: Webloyalty.com (http://www.webloyalty.com/) is one of the leading online subscription and marketing services companies providing customized programs to e-commerce businesses. Through its range of innovative Internet products, webloyalty.com enables its clients to generate new revenues and increase repeat purchase rates while offering their clients' customers a range of subscription services.
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Search, Ads by Phone
By Tessa Wegert
April 28, 2005
www.clickz.com/experts/media/media_buy/article.php/3500551
I just moved to Detroit. To orient myself, I picked up a copy of the county's local newspaper, The Oakland Press. A story that caught my eye was about a plan to introduce free wireless broadband Internet access in Oakland County, beginning this fall.
If the Wi-Fi (define) project goes ahead as anticipated, Oakland will be the first county to offer such a service (some individual cities, such as Montpelier, VT, and Chaska, MN, already offer similar subscription-based Wi-Fi programs). What has people talking, however, is the local Internet provider, or group of providers, that gets the contract will be able to sell ads.
Ads will likely appear when users log on. Observers, such as the paper's business editor, appear ready to accept them. "Seems like a minor tradeoff for free wireless. Heck, you can always choose not to use it," he says.
Local businesses, meanwhile, are surely counting the days to the network's launch. What better way to increase a customer base than by delivering ad messages to local wireless Internet users? From offering coupons exclusive to the service's users to promoting time-sensitive specials that elicit an immediate response, the options for driving local traffic to their stores are virtually endless.
An equally appetizing local ad service is soon to be offered by a new media company called Commoca. Its system allows advertisers to target community residents by phone.
The company is developing a telephone embedded with local content, including an area-specific business directory, which will launch in November. Users can search for numbers right on the phone, and advertisers can deliver ads based on content type (think pizza delivery or computer repair) combined with the user's residential phone number.
"Advertisers know, 'If I can get somebody on the phone, that is of value to me,'" says Dane Madsen, CEO of Commoca, the former CEO and co-founder of YellowPages.com." Seventy percent of local businesses sell their time, not things. If someone is only clicking through to a site, an advertiser may lose a valuable opportunity [to make a sale]."
The Commoca system will sell advertising on a pay-per-call basis via partnerships with existing interactive media sellers. Madsen notes it'll be particularly useful for the almost 14 million U.S. businesses that still don't have Web sites.
Before the Internet and interactive advertising options like these came along, local businesses were limited to placements in local newspapers and circulars, the Yellow Pages, and the like. Though these may work, results can't be accurately measured. Determining the value of these buys is extremely difficult.
Today, more companies are catering to the local advertising market, and their technology-dependent offerings are increasingly appealing. With a few strategic placements, the savvy small business can ensure a steady stream of customers and virtually crush its competition.
Alternatives such as local search are still hot, to be sure. But click fraud has some media buyers wary, and geotargeting based on search terms isn't always accurate, as searchers sometimes neglect to include geographic specifications. Those systems, however, can assure local business ads are seen just by local residents and area visitors. That makes for both a better buy and, very likely, a better return on investment.
If you're a local business eager to supplement your current on- or offline advertising efforts, or a company waiting for just the right opportunity, prepare for an influx of interactive offerings. As more time and effort area devoted to improving our local communities, so can the livelihoods of local businesses be improved.
It's just a matter of knowing where to search.
Ad Stats, Stats, I don't need no stinking stats!All Advertising Statistics:
http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P2455
http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=C0_22_1
Maybe EVEN Bigger, lol:
I read this: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120605,00.asp
And thought of This:
Q: How does WiMAX compare to 3G?
A: 3G has been built on the foundation of a voice network. And the 3G community is adding data capability to it. Our objective for WiMAX 802.16e is to be a high speed data service that can be used to extend and complement 3G service. We know of several 3G service providers that are worried that as data use grows they will not have enough spectrum for both their voice customers and their data customers. So they're interested in WiMAX as a complementary data service technology that they can deploy with their 3G voice service. So essentially, WiMAX is very targeted for wireless data, not wireless voice.
There's another big difference between WiMAX and cellular technologies in general. Cellular grew up – more or less – where the whole system was architected from the network and base station all the way out to the client – typically the phone – and different vendors' equipment didn't necessarily work together. Eventually there were a lot of separate networks. Roaming agreements have been put in place, so that more so and more so you can work on other people's networks, although you'll be charged extra for it. With WiMAX we're working to get that type of interoperability and more - from Day One. That means if you buy a client made out of silicon by Intel, you could use it on several different networks even if the base stations are provided by different companies.
Q: Intel is said to be working toward a future of "anywhere, anytime connectivity". Where does WiMAX fit into this vision?
A: Today, Wi-Fi kind of lives by what we call the "five minute rule." If you live in a city, most likely you can walk five minutes and find a hotspot. Or if you're in your car in the suburbs or a village, you can usually drive within five minutes and find one of those. With WiMAX we're trying to offer that same type of service without having to drive or walk five minutes. Eventually, you can just open your notebook and get a connection, wherever you may be.
When WiMAX is fully developed, you'll no longer be limited to 300 feet within the Wi-Fi hotspot. And you won't have to drive around looking for a connection. Even though it's only five minutes, it's still five minutes, and that's just not as natural as getting a connection anywhere.
When people have a broadband connection they tend to use their computer more, they leave it on and they integrate it more into their lifestyle. WiMAX technology extends the range of broadband wireless access to more users in more geographies. This happens first with last mile connections where anyone wants them, and eventually in notebook mode for mobility. We believe WiMAX can be deployed in any metro area, using the licensed spectrum that we are working with today, and it moves around the world.
http://www.intel.com/netcomms/columns/jimj105.htm
Broadband Wireless Overview:
javascript:launchBBWFlashBase();
ftp://download.intel.com/netcomms/bbw/30202601.pdf
In any event, time to take out the garbage and get some shut eye, nite nite...
Intel: Broadband mobile standard in 2006
WiMax is getting serious attention from phone companies as the next-generation wireless standard.
April 17, 2005: 10:37 AM EDT
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Emerging wireless broadband technology WiMax is getting serious attention from both fixed and mobile telecom operators, but it will take years before a mass market of consumers will use it, Intel said on Friday.
Sean Maloney, head of Intel's mobility unit, said many trials were under way, but the actual deployment of mobile WiMax would not start this year.
"You'll probably see things at the back end of 2006, you'll probably see some ... trials earlier than that," he told Reuters in an interview.
WiMax is seen as a longer-range successor to Wi-Fi, the wireless computer standard popularized in coffee shops and used in homes and restaurants. WiMax enables broadband Internet connections over several miles or kilometers, currently to fixed locations but next year also to mobile devices such as laptops or small computers.
"Most of the world does not have (broadband) infrastructure. For most of the world this will be how they will get broadband," Maloney said.
He said most mobile operators are to some extent interested in entering the WiMax field, where the first service providers have already started to offer connections.
Dutch company Enertel's WiMax service is now available in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, the Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven. By the end of 2005 its network will offer national coverage across the Netherlands.
Surprisingly, it is not just fixed-line telecoms operators who see WiMax as a way of getting into the mobile services business. Mobile operators see WiMax as an alternative wireless network to relieve their newly built 3G networks from heavy data users and cut costs.
Maloney expects handset makers and operators to roll out a lot of phones using Wi-Fi during the next 12 months, but WiMax phones will come later as the mobile chips are not yet ready.
"Some of mobile operators want to talk about it immediately and get involved and do trials," Maloney said, adding there were major differences between operators, as some are preoccupied with launching their fast-speed third-generation (3G) networks.
"3G is in deployment phase now .... With WiMax on the mobile side we are at least two years behind that," Maloney said, adding the networks could cooperate in the future.
"There is an opportunity, in four to five years or so, in harmonizing the two standards, getting an intersection point between the two," Maloney said.
Maloney said standardization of a version of WiMax for laptops and portable devices -- which has been delayed due to technological bickering -- is expected in the coming months.
"It is not done, but I think the principal agreements have been reached," he said.
Find this article at:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/17/technology/mobile_broadband.reut
Intel's Otellini Says Desktop Death Brings New Sales (Update1)
April 27 (Bloomberg) -- In a windowless conference room on the fifth floor of Intel Corp.'s Santa Clara, California, headquarters, Paul Otellini points to a poster dominated by a picture of a silicon wafer and a single word: Growth.
Otellini, who is set to take over as chief executive officer in May, has little doubt about his priority.
``We damned well better be a high-tech, high-growth company,'' says Craig Barrett, who is retiring as CEO at Intel's mandatory age of 65 and who commissioned the poster, which is pinned up in 181 Intel buildings in 11 countries.
Living up to Barrett's directive will be Otellini's toughest challenge. Founded by a pair of former Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc. executives in 1968, Intel blossomed into the world's biggest computer-chip maker, giving rise to the region's Silicon Valley moniker.
During the Internet bubble, Intel strayed from its roots, staffing buildings jammed with servers to run Web sites and making digital music recorders and microscopes connected to computers. When those businesses flopped, Intel returned its focus to processor chips, only to find demand for personal computers was slowing.
Now, like information technology icons Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft Corp., Intel is busy writing a next act beyond the desktop PC. For Otellini, 54, that means hunting for sales growth in chips for mobile phones, home entertainment and even computers that store data in doctors' offices. He dubs the strategy ``Intel 3.0.''
`Can't Stand Still'
``They can't stand still,'' says Ian Link, head of information technology investing at Deutsche Bank AG's New York- based Deutsche Asset Management unit, which is Intel's sixth- largest investor, with 110 million shares. ``They are done riding a wave, and they'd better set themselves up for the next wave, or they will be dead in the water.''
Intel's sales growth will decline to 10 percent this year, making revenue about $37.7 billion, and may shrink to 7 percent in 2006 from a high of 50 percent in 1993, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast. Analysts estimate net income will rise 8 percent to about $8.1 billion this year and 12 percent in 2006.
``For the large-cap tech names like Intel, there's a lot more focus on the balance sheet,'' says Ken Carey, who helps manage $105 billion, including about 20 million Intel shares, at Charles Schwab Corp.'s U.S. Trust unit in New York. ``If they're not going to grow the top line, how are we going to be compensated to own these stocks?''
Stock Drop
After reaching a record of $75.81 in August 2000, Intel's shares closed at $23.51 today. Last year alone, the stock tumbled 27 percent after demand dwindled and Intel was left with a record $3.22 billion in surplus chips in the second quarter. Customers weren't buying, and Otellini and Barrett held back or canceled at least five products, including a delayed next version of the flagship Pentium processor.
The delays almost cost Intel an exclusive contract with its biggest customer, Dell Inc., based in Round Rock, Texas. For the first time, the world's biggest personal computer maker considered buying processors from Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Dell CEO Kevin Rollins said in February at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium in Phoenix.
``Whenever one of our partners slips on either the economics or technology, that causes us great concern,'' Rollins said.
Texas Instruments' Lead
While Dell pondered -- and then rejected -- switching, Dallas- based Texas Instruments Inc., whose semiconductors run more than half of the mobile phones sold last year, solidified its lead in the handset market.
Intel's baseband chips, the main processors in cell phones, aren't used in a single phone that's on shelves now. Computers -- which are still responsible for more than 80 percent of the revenue Intel gets from its chips -- have yet to find their way into living rooms in meaningful numbers.
Tokyo-based Sony Corp. is hogging space alongside the TV with the best-selling PlayStation 2 game console, which doesn't use Intel chips. The next version of Sony's nearest console competitor, Microsoft's Xbox, will be powered by a chip from International Business Machines Corp.
Otellini has moved swiftly since November, when Intel's board named the 30-year company veteran to take over from Barrett. In January, the CEO-to-be announced the biggest-ever shakeup in Intel's corporate structure. He broke Intel's two divisions, the profitable computer microprocessor business and the money-losing communications chip business, into five units.
`Outward-Facing'
The new setup reflects where the products go: enterprise, or corporations; digital home, which includes entertainment; mobility, or laptops and cell phones; digital health, which includes devices to store medical records; and channel products, or sales that are tailored for specific regions of the world.
``For the first time in our history, the product development organization is outward-facing,'' Otellini says.
In February, Otellini proclaimed another break with the past. He stood onstage at California's Anaheim Convention Center before more than 3,000 employees gathered for Intel's annual sales conference. As a picture of a beige desktop computer beamed from a screen, Otellini asked, ``Is the desktop dead?''
His answer: Yes, at least the way most consumers think about their computers. Otellini wants to move the PC beyond the desk. He predicts Intel will enjoy the same impact in consumer electronics that it has had in computing.
Setting Industry Standards
Intel's strength is that it can set technical standards that a whole industry adopts, which Sony and other companies can't do, Otellini says. Every computer that runs Microsoft Windows also uses hardware specifications set by Intel.
While looking outward for new markets, Otellini also wants to expand Intel's reach among its biggest customers: computer makers. Intel is reviewing data gathered by Dell and other PC companies and then sending engineers back to the drawing board to design chips with the features consumers want.
``The amount of interest and dialogue that Intel has shown around our customer behavior, requirements and needs has increased,'' says Michael Farello, head of Dell's consumer division.
One example of a design that incorporated the insights of customers who buy from Dell and other PC makers came in June 2004. Intel unveiled what it billed as its most important product announcement of the year: Grantsdale, which is a package of chips, rather than a single processor, for desktop machines. The Grantsdale chips, named for a town in Montana, work with the basic components of a PC to produce movie-theater-style sound and graphics, an application Intel previously avoided.
`The Product Guy'
Defining new roles for the PC is one way Otellini intends to exploit his inheritance from his predecessor. The first non- engineer to become Intel's CEO, Otellini has a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of San Francisco and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Barrett earned his Ph.D. in materials science at Stanford University in Stanford, California, and then taught physics there.
At Intel, Otellini started in finance, ran sales and marketing and then headed the microprocessor division. He led the introduction of the Pentium chip, Intel's biggest seller.
``Each of the leaders of the company had a different set of skills that really benefited the company at the time,'' Otellini says. ``I think of myself as the product guy.''
Barrett's Tenure
Barrett was the manufacturing guy. During his seven years as CEO, he spent $33.1 billion on plants and equipment -- more than any other semiconductor maker. He also dished out more than $9 billion to buy Xircom Inc. and other communications chip companies. The purchases will let Intel continue to improve the features it enables PC makers to build into their machines, from wireless networking connections to better graphics for video games, Otellini says.
Otellini's task is to figure out how Intel can secure its place in new devices, keep Barrett's factories full and make a profit from acquisitions, such as the $1.2 billion purchase of cell phone chip maker DSP Communications Inc., that haven't delivered to the bottom line.
In the past three years, Intel's communications unit had a combined operating loss of $2.4 billion. Last year, the unit's loss narrowed to $791 million as its sales rose by 28 percent to $1.09 billion.
Scrapping Clock Speed
Highlighting his emphasis on products, Otellini has scrapped Intel's strategy of designing and marketing chips around clock speed, the measure of how fast a processor performs instructions. Clock speed -- which is expressed in megahertz and gigahertz, or millions and billions of cycles a second -- was a perennial selling point in PC ads.
Instead of pushing pure performance, Otellini is hawking packages of semiconductors such as Grantsdale. He and Barrett point to Centrino, a chip set designed for notebook computers, as the model. Since 2003, Intel has sold $5 billion of Centrino chips, which boost battery life and let notebook computers connect to the Internet through so-called WiFi hot spots.
In the first quarter, sales of Centrinos helped lift Intel's sales 17 percent to $9.4 billion, a record for any first quarter. ``Centrino is a good high bar for us to enter new markets with, and it's one we want to keep squarely in our mind going forward,'' Otellini says.
Otellini pitched his vision to potential chip customers in a January speech at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Standing on the stage of the Las Vegas Hilton's theater, Otellini said most electronics makers took several years to design products and then sold them in stores for five or more years.
`Desktrino'
By contrast, he said, Intel's Centrino-like ``platform'' for living rooms will help them design, produce and market new wares in times typical in the computer world, where fresh models can roll out once a year.
Otellini is creating a new brand for his chip, which people inside Intel are dubbing ``Desktrino.'' His goal is to persuade consumers that whether they buy from Dell, Sony or any other company, they should insist that the device has Intel chips inside. While Intel has had success selling the Intel brand with companies such as Dell, moving into consumer electronics is uncharted territory.
In March, Don MacDonald, head of Intel's new digital home division, showed off examples of what the company is betting will win its processors a place next to the TV. At the chipmaker's semiannual Intel Developers Forum, he demonstrated a prototype PC that fit in the palm of his hand and was the length of the remote control that operated it.
Miniature PC
Such a miniature PC might replace digital video recorders, cable television set-top boxes and audio amplifiers by rolling all of those functions into one device. By 2008, about 25 percent of U.S. homes will contain such devices, according to a 2004 report from New York-based investment bank Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
Intel will have to slug it out en route to the living room. ``With players from the hardware, software, consumer electronics and cable industries all pushing different solutions, competition to supply devices to the digital home is already becoming extremely aggressive,'' Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi wrote in the report.
``The outstanding question is, `Which device will become the central box?''' says U.S. Trust's Carey.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the world's largest consumer electronics maker; Royal Philips Electronics NV, Europe's biggest consumer electronics maker; and Sony all have machines that run living room electronics without using a PC. ``This is a market Intel is trying to help create, and they are in early,'' Carey says. ``There's no front-runner yet.''
`Management Genius'
Otellini arrived at Intel in 1974, six years after the company's founding and a decade before the first PCs began to catch on. One of his jobs was technical assistant to then Chief Operating Officer Andy Grove, 68, who was one of Intel's first employees after founders Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. Otellini calls Grove a ``management genius.''
Intel designed the technical assistant program to equip up- and-coming managers for the rigors of becoming senior executives, says Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Anand Chandrasekher, 41, who was technical assistant to Barrett. ``It prepares you for the pressure cooker,'' he says.
In his new role, Otellini says, he's borrowing from his mentor's approach to managing change. Grove used to publicly announce a shift in corporate direction to force employees into following him, Otellini says.
`Strategy by Speech'
``He had a great phrase, which was called `strategy by speech,''' Otellini says. ``He would give a speech externally, which would say where the company is going and everyone inside would say, `Holy smoke, he's serious.'''
Under Grove, who holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, Intel made its biggest breakthrough in 1978. Its 8088 processor, a precursor to the Pentium, won a spot in IBM's personal computer, the first mass-produced PC to run on Microsoft's operating system software.
In 1991, Intel scrapped its anonymous numbering system, started naming its chips and paid PC makers to include the ``Intel Inside'' label on their boxes and in advertising.
While few people have seen the postage-stamp-size processor that runs a desktop machine, Intel and its stable of chips rank as the world's fifth-most-valuable brand, behind General Electric Co., IBM, Microsoft and Coca-Cola Co., according to London-based consulting firm Interbrand.
Math Mistakes
Last year's hiccups at Intel aren't without precedent. In 1994, Intel offered replacement chips to owners of Pentium-powered PCs after a professor of mathematics named Thomas Nicely at Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia, discovered that the processor was making mistakes when doing long-division calculations in limited situations.
Six years later, Intel recalled some Pentium III processors because they forced PCs to shut down when running certain programs. In his book ``Only the Paranoid Survive'' (Random House, 1996), Grove said the 1994 flaw brought home to him how much more consumers expected from Intel after the company had done its best to place itself in the forefront of their thinking about computers.
These days, Advanced Micro Devices, 2 miles away from Intel in Sunnyvale, California, is never far from Otellini's mind. A cupboard in his cubicle is decorated with memorabilia including an inflatable hammer bearing Advanced Micro's logo -- with a meat cleaver through it.
Advanced Micro Rivalry
Advanced Micro has beaten its larger rival to market twice in the past two years. In 2003, Advanced Micro began selling a server chip that processes information in both 32- and 64-bit chunks. Intel, which had argued there wasn't enough software available to support such a chip, relented a year later and updated a version of its Xeon processor to handle 64 bits. A 64-bit chip helps to process data faster and perform complicated tasks such as mining databases.
Advanced Micro also was first with a so-called dual-core chip, which puts two processors on a single piece of silicon, for server computers. On April 15 Intel announced a dual-core chip for desktops, clawing its way back in that market. In October 2004, Intel said it had canceled the next iteration of the Pentium in favor of designing a new, dual-core version.
Advanced Micro's victories may be short-lived as Otellini prepares to swing the meat cleaver again, says Daniel Morgan, who helps manage $6.5 billion, including Intel shares, at St. Petersburg, Florida-based Synovus Investment Advisors. ``AMD gets a narrow window, and they just don't quite deliver,'' Morgan says. ``This isn't a new phenomenon. It's been going on forever.''
`Copy Exactly'
Otellini's weapons include four factories that are able to make semiconductors on 300-millimeter (11.8-inch) wafers. That means Intel produces chips in larger quantities and at least 30 percent more cheaply than those Advanced Micro makes on older, 200- millimeter wafers. Advanced Micro isn't scheduled to begin mass production of 300-millimeter wafers until 2006.
Inside its plants, Intel distances itself from almost every chipmaker, says Mark Edelstone, a semiconductor industry analyst at Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. He rates Intel shares ``equal weight,'' the equivalent of ``hold,'' and says he doesn't own them.
Intel relies on a ``copy exactly'' formula that dictates every detail of a plant's organization. Copy exactly means that the length of hose coming out of air cooling machines below the factory floor, how that hose is coiled and the side of the machine on which it's hung are the same in each of Intel's 13 plants, says Bruce Sohn, manager of Intel's largest factory, Fab 11x in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, 16 miles north of Albuquerque.
Return on Investments
Barrett's insistence on copy exactly means Otellini doesn't have to worry about factory quality or capacity, Chief Financial Officer Andy Bryant, 55, says.
``Paul has an appreciation of manufacturing, but he'll be more focused on, `Now, how do we get a return on these investments?''' Bryant says.
Investors increasingly judge Intel and its competitors on gross margin, the percentage of sales left after subtracting manufacturing costs. Last July, when Intel said it would miss its gross-margin forecast of 62 percent in that quarter, the company's shares tumbled 11 percent, knocking $18 billion off its market value in a single day.
Gross margin was 57.7 percent in 2004. After reporting a 25 percent increase in first-quarter net income on April 19, Intel boosted its forecast for 2005 gross margin to 59 percent, plus or minus a couple of points, from a previous forecast of 58 percent.
Wider Margins
Net income rose to $2.15 billion, or 34 cents a share, from $1.73 billion, or 26 cents, a year earlier. During the past 10 years, Intel's gross margin has averaged 55.4 percent. Advanced Micro's gross margin was 39.4 percent last year, slightly above its 10-year average of 39.2 percent.
Intel's wider margins stem from investments in manufacturing that help drive costs down as well as its dominance of the computer chip business. New products may not deliver similar margins, even if Intel can win orders. That's because customers don't want their own profits eroded by relying on Intel for most of their parts, says Brian Halla, 58, CEO of Intel neighbor National Semiconductor Corp. Intel, thanks to its more than 80 percent market share, has been free to force high prices on PC makers, he says.
``No one wants to get Inteled again,'' says Halla, who worked at Intel for 14 years beginning in 1975. During the 1990s, Halla tried unsuccessfully to compete with Intel in the PC microprocessor business. National Semiconductor now focuses solely on analog chips that manage power and run sound and lighting in electronics.
`Mr. Inside'
To persuade customers to buy, Otellini may have to shift from being ``Mr. Inside,'' the label Barrett came up with when he named Otellini president in 2002. When Otellini headed sales and marketing, he focused on customers.
Under Barrett, Otellini has stuck closer to home, diving into the nuts and bolts of Intel's business while Barrett lived up to his ``Mr. Outside'' nickname by visiting more than 30 countries last year. Otellini's tenure as Mr. Inside made him pragmatic, rounding out the experience required for the CEO job, Bryant says.
In one display of pragmatism, Otellini killed Intel's chip for large-screen televisions last October, nine months after touting it at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
``Intel did what it does best: It took a risk on technology,'' Otellini says, explaining that he canceled the chip because Intel couldn't make it effectively in high volumes. ``It just wasn't scalable in a cost-effective fashion.''
`Ph.D.-ness'
Barrett, in contrast, tended to let engineers win him over based on a project's technical merits, Bryant says. ``Some people were able to appeal to Craig's Ph.D.-ness. That won't happen with Paul.''
Barrett will be promoted to chairman, and Grove will become chairman emeritus. Barrett will continue trotting the globe to tout Intel's technology while the official Mr. Outside duties fall to Otellini.
He's already taken up the mantle. In April, Otellini visited South America. And he appeared beside Cisco Systems Inc. CEO John Chambers, Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt and Yahoo! Inc. CEO Terry Semel on the Charlie Rose talk show on U.S. public television stations to discuss the future of the Internet.
Last year, Intel got more than 70 percent of its $34.2 billion in sales from overseas, with 45 percent of that amount from Asia. The U.S. accounted for 32 percent of sales in 2002 and 23 percent last year. Some 12,000 distributors in 110 countries sell Intel products.
Dealers in Iraq
``We have authorized dealers in Iraq,'' Otellini says. ``That was illegal a year ago.''
Developing products to lure customers in emerging markets fits Otellini's vision for Intel 3.0. Last year Intel introduced a machine code named Christea for Internet cafes in Asia, where rows of as many as 1,000 PCs are lined up for Web surfers to tap away on, paying on a per-minute basis.
Technology Intel created for Christea lets a cafe's manager add or remove programs such as video games via a central desktop machine based on a user's requests. The manager can also keep tabs on security to prevent theft of keyboards and computer mice via alerts that come in when someone attempts to remove a component.
``There will be a class of devices that we haven't even seen yet,'' Otellini says. ``The next 2 billion people, as they come into computing, may not have the same disposable income.''
`Not a Nerd'
Pushing into places such as Internet cafes, which didn't exist a decade ago, requires a CEO like Otellini, Deutsche Asset Management's Link says.
``This guy is not a nerd laboratory engineer and is more of a marketing and sales guy,'' Link says. ``The next stage for this company is to move into a broader product set, and that requires someone like Otellini.''
Intel's most obvious failure has been its inability to make headway in the $22.4 billion market for mobile-phone processors. Texas Instruments leads that market, selling more than half of all baseband processors, according to Tempe, Arizona-based research firm Forward Concepts Co. In the total market for cell-phone chips, Texas Instruments beats Intel with a 15 percent share to Intel's 1 percent.
Intel's new baseband processor, named Hermon, is due in the second half of 2005. The transition to phones known as third generation, or 3G, gives Intel an opportunity to break into the market. The new phones let users surf the Internet, shoot short videos and listen to MP3 audio files.
`Call to Urgency'
``We have a year to 18 months to establish ourselves in that business,'' says Sean Maloney, 48, who ran the money-losing communications business. In the reorganization, Otellini folded much of communications into the mobility business, which Maloney now heads.
Otellini says he'll stick with phone chips even while saying they've fallen short of his expectations. After reading reports about new handsets at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show in January, he wrote to employees on his Web log:
``This show was a call to urgency for us to move faster in this arena. This playing field is being defined without our participation at this time. We need to step up and do what we need to do to win in this exciting new arena.''
Otellini is counting on Maloney to persuade the world's biggest cell phone makers, Espoo, Finland-based Nokia Oyj and Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola Inc., not only to use Intel chips to run software but to choose the Hermon as well.
Marketing Push
Otellini is also looking to new marketing chief Eric Kim for insights into handsets. In November 2004, Intel hired Kim, 50, from Samsung Electronics Co., the world's third-biggest mobile phone maker. Kim had worked for five years as Samsung's vice president of global marketing and traded a corner office overlooking the North Gate at the end of Seoul's main thoroughfare for a cubicle in Santa Clara four desks away from Otellini.
Samsung stands as the world's second-biggest television maker, behind Sony, making Kim a key ally in understanding the digital home as well. ``Intel hasn't really had to market before because it just rode the wave of PCs,'' Kim says, standing amid poker and blackjack tables at an Intel party during the developer conference.
Tim Allen, who helps manage $5.5 billion, including Intel shares, at Seattle-based Wentworth, Hauser & Violich, questions whether Intel is wasting its time pursuing markets it didn't invent. ``They have a core business that's awesome,'' Allen says. ``It doesn't grow like it used to, but it still brings phenomenal returns.''
`Pulled Muscles'
Intel shouldn't spend its $17.1 billion in cash on research and development or acquisitions unrelated to the microprocessor business unless it can demonstrate a better record in its return on investments, Allen says. Intel has no history of proving it can get returns greater than its shareholders might earn by investing elsewhere, he says.
``Part of being 45 years old is recognizing that you are not 25,'' Allen says. ``If you continue to act like you're 25, you're going to have a lot of pulled muscles.''
Carl Everett, who was general manager of Intel's microprocessor division during his 18 years at the company, says Otellini is correct to look beyond the desktop PC.
``The companies that have it going on today are the companies that have leadership in complete products and technologies,'' says Everett, who went on to head Dell's PC unit before retiring in 2001. He cites the turnaround at Apple Computer Inc. led by CEO Steve Jobs as an example. Otellini's management shuffle is a good first step, Everett says.
Otellini says he has more to do. There's no doubt how he'll be judged. ``The markets expect us to grow, our shareholders expect us to grow and I guarantee you our board expects us to grow,'' he says.
To achieve his mandate, Otellini will have to lead Intel into the escalating battles for the living room and mobile communications, where the world's biggest consumer-electronics and cell-phone companies have already staked their claims.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.net
Jason Kelly in Atlanta at jkelly14@Bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 27, 2005 16:06 EDT
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=awa8J_EVMzO8#
What Happens When GPS Meets Your Cell Phone
Will it serve the dark side by allowing your boss to track you, or the side of good -- letting you hail a cab with your phone?
By Matthew Maier, April 26, 2005
Vodafone Germany has found a new use for its mobile phones -- and it has nothing to do with making phone calls.
As peak allergy season envelops Germany, Vodafone (VOD) is touting its "Lorano Polleninfo" service. Combining GPS data from a user's phone, national weather data, and a personalized allergy profile -- subscribers register what pollens they are allergic to -- the service sends daily alerts containing pollen forecasts and which areas to avoid. The service costs roughly $6 a month.
This is the future of location-based services. Long heralded as one of the wireless industry's next big things, GPS-based mobile services are only now becoming useful and attracting the interest of carriers and consumers alike. Though the pollen alert certainly lacks flare, it shows that carriers are finding useful applications for location data by providing a service that consumers would be hard-pressed to get otherwise. Sky Dayton recently announced his SK-EarthLink virtual operator, in part, to see if certain location-based services that were popular in Korea -- such as friend-finder applications -- would work well in the United States. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley-based companies such as Xora have developed popular GPS-enabled applications to help businesses keep track of employees and assets.
Xora's location service is one of the more successful in North America -- even if it's often unpopular with employees. The Java-based application, which runs on Nextel's (NXTL) network and phones, uses GPS data to monitor employees' movements. It also acts as a virtual time sheet, allowing workers to sign in and out via their phones with the press of a button. It's proven to be an exceptionally popular service: Xora has close to 3,000 customers -- including the city of Chicago -- which use the service to keep track of nearly 30,000 employees. Employers pay, on average, $12 per month for each employee, which is split between Nextel and Xora. "Our customers save at least $1,500 per employee, per year, by cutting down on inefficiencies and ensuring employees are where they say they are," says Sanjay Shirole, Xora's chief executive.
Not surprisingly, Nextel is a big fan as well. The only carrier currently supporting wide-scale GPS-based applications, Nextel has been perfecting its location services for nearly two years. Today it has scores of customers using its network to track assets across the country. "It's an extremely exciting business for us," says Rob Consolazio, Nextel's director of wireless data. "For a lot of reasons, this should be a very big year for GPS services."
Imagination remains paramount, however. The current crop of GPS services -- especially in North America -- focuses primarily on providing solutions for businesses. Meanwhile, the only other frequently mentioned application for location-based services -- location-aware spam from retailers and other stores -- runs the risk of alienating subscribers altogether. Services like Zingo, which helps London dwellers hail taxis using their phones' GPS data, are a start. But for location-based services to really catch on, developers and carriers must find new ways to incorporate location data into everything from local search applications to games.
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1054577,00.html.
Power Lunch Break Here...hi, sorry to "jump on the hype band wagon (if one can really call it that cuz this is a real deal chuck wagon imo" but I too agree with you ALYNNB so much, I re-read Wolfins reply to me last night and it all makes sense imo, it seems like every body who is somebody is focusing on search of some sort/kind in all areas whether pc, mobile, invisible post ups and on and on (thanks for that Siemens link last night Alexandre btw, that is just mind boggling)...this is all part of the continuing evolution imo of the transistor/main frame/pc/internet/broadband/FO build-out era...something like that and like so many of those past phases, this has been validated by Google that real earnings are possible by trying to capture a market everyone had "paradigm paralysis" over and didn't focus on last several years for whatever reasons, well some did but not like the tidal wave of every tom, dick and Harry trying to "scramble" to get in now, I suppose is what I am trying to say...and to borrow TS comment, [b}"Stay with me...The local search wave is just starting. You think Google is profitable? You think Yahoo and Microsoft are doing all they can do dethrone them?...You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! " (ps, I/sog might add, I am so glad cell phones outsold pc's last year at about a 3-1 pace I think, especially since we are in that arena with some of our patents, in case you weren't aware already..lol)
...The ability to share in the profitability as well as altruistically know you will make communications & lives safer by adding so many additional "value added" benefits and working towards making communications so much more efficient for billions across the Globe is a good humanistic thing imo...and to be a part of the transformation of an entire paradigm is just to intoxicating NOT to wannna be a part of if you are some exec, employee or average schmo like myself...all jmho...Anyway, have to finish up my lunch and get back to work, have a great day all and thanks for all the quality DD, etc etc.
sog
****Original replay I refer to*****
Posted by: Wolfin
In reply to: sonofgodzilla who wrote msg# 13413 Date:4/26/2005 6:49:29 PM
Post #of 13522
Keeping to a positive level, IMHO I believe that this will hit the market much quicker than anyone anticipates because in todays environment - he who gets to the finish line first gets all the spoils....and thats a huge amount of cash flow.....the other reason I think this will happen is to firm up their patents so energy and cash are not directed to areas that are not productive....I see this occurring almost immediately after the huge and anticipated NR being released with the big guy.
Too large and too much at stake for NEOM to wait any longer......
Sometimes its best just to move heaven and earth to get an industry changing product out in the market place....
Also, great board and great posters......thanks for all the info and help in me understanding this whole play....
Cheers
Marketing Evolution dd: Branding: Five New Lessons
The P&G purchase of Gillette shows that innovation is key, and marketing is more diffuse and personal
FEBRUARY 14, 2005
The last time detergent and toothpaste giant Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) made a bid for razormaker Gillette Co. (G ), it was out of desperation. Back in 2000, when the Cincinnati giant made an unsolicited bid, Gillette was a bargain: Despite its hit Mach3 razor, a series of earnings disappointments had hammered the stock. P&G was struggling, too, and so were a lot of other once-invincible brands. With fracturing TV audiences moving to the Web and cable, the classic 30-second spot that had made household names of the likes of Mr. Clean and Tide was losing traction. Consumers were starting to identify more with niche markets than with the one-size-fits-all brands that had long been the backbone of the consumer-products industry. Retail shelves were stocked with private-label rivals. Most frightening of all: The information-packed Internet threatened to expose those brands as nothing special. The age of the giant, mass-market brand seemed to be dead -- and so was a P&G-Gillette deal.
Oh, what a different story it was on Jan. 28 when it was announced that the wedding was on. Sales growth at both companies is on a tear, earnings and margins are up, and hit products are rolling out of their labs. P&G's sales growth is running at 8% a year, excluding acquisitions -- double the rate of the late 1990s. And the once-struggling razormaker fetched a price of $57 billion, 19 times earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation. Why did Gillette do the deal? "I have a simple formula," says CEO James Kilts. "Strength plus strength equals success."
Are brands back? Well, yes and no. Well, yes and no. It's not that the doomsayers were all wrong. Media are becoming infinitely more complex. Big retailers -- especially Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) -- are more powerful than ever, pressuring the profits that big brands need to fuel marketing and innovation. And every year surveys show consumers becoming more cynical about advertising. No wonder so many brands have faltered: Coca-Cola (KO ), Levi Strauss, Kodak (EK ), Ford (F ) -- the list goes on.
But the savviest brand managers have adapted, creating a new paradigm in which innovation is king, marketing is diffuse and personal, and size can be an advantage. Nothing shows this more than perennial No. 1 detergent Tide, where P&G's stepped-up consumer research, brand extensions, and ads have reawakened it within a moribund category.
Here are five lessons from classic companies and upstarts alike. All are thriving by managing brands differently than companies did in the heyday of the mass market.
1 Innovate. Innovate. Innovate.
Why would P&G tinker with Tide? Long the detergent leader, Tide would seem best left alone, a profitable annuity on years of mass-market flogging in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. But P&G has tinkered nonetheless, combining strong technology and consumer research to push sales up 2.6% over the last year in a category that is growing less than 1%. The secret: a widening family of detergents and cleaners that now includes everything from Tide Coldwater, for cold-water washing, to Tide Kick, a combination measuring cup and stain penetrator.
Innovation isn't always built from scratch. P&G is a master at transferring technologies from one brand to another. Tide StainBrush, a new electric brush for removing stains, uses the same basic mechanism as the Crest Spinbrush Pro toothbrush -- also a P&G brand. Gillette, too, is adept at cross-pollination. Its latest winner is the battery-operated M3Power, the result of a collaboration between the company's razor, Duracell battery, and Braun small-appliance units. Despite a 50% price premium over what Gillette charged for its previous top-of-the-line razor, the M3Power has captured a 35% share of the U.S. razor market in seven months.
2 Move Fast -- Or Lose Out
Not only are customers hooked on innovation, they're demanding it faster. Handbag designer Coach Inc. once introduced new products quarterly; now they come out monthly. On Coach's Web site, the new line currently features a bevy of options, from a $498 suede tote bag covered in an oversized pink and purple logo pattern to the "Coach Soho Nappa Small Tortilla," a white leather number with a tassel and a $328 price tag. "For brands to stay relevant, they have to stay on their toes. Complacency has no place in this market," says CEO Lew Frankfort. In any given month, Frankfort says, new products account for 30% of U.S. retail store sales.
3 Minimize Exposure to Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is the key customer for any consumer product brand today. But balancing those sales with plenty of others is vital to a brand's health: For most suppliers, the more you sell to the world's biggest retailer, the less you make. In a recent study by consultant Bain & Co. of 38 companies doing 10% or more of their volume through Wal-Mart, only 24% sustained above-average profitability and shareholder returns. P&G, which sells 18% of its goods through Wal-Mart, was one. It has done so by shifting business away from basic products such as paper towels, which can easily be knocked off by a private label, to higher-margin products such as health and beauty care, including its line of Olay skin products.
It's not as if Wal-Mart is the only game in town -- though sometimes it might seem that way. Besides low prices, Americans crave convenience. Increasingly, consumers are shunning supermarkets and buying food at convenience stores, fast-food outlets, club stores, and elsewhere. Recognizing that, Kellogg Co. (K ) began thinking outside the supermarket aisle in 2001 when it bought Keebler Co. and its links to vending machines. Now, Nutri-Grain bars, Pop-Tarts, and even single-serving cereal bowls are available at many more places, and the Battle Creek (Mich.) company has gone from providing breakfast cereals to round-the-clock snacks.
4 The New Media Message
The splintering media, it turns out, hasn't been all bad. P&G is a longtime master of what a former exec calls "surround-sound marketing" -- everything from in-store demos to pitches on Wal-Mart TV, engulfing shoppers in the brand message. But it has also become a pioneer of new techniques, such as integrating its Crest Whitening Expressions Refreshing Vanilla Mint into a recent episode of the TV show The Apprentice. The goal is to both target specific customers and to fit the medium to the message. When research showed that girls wanted to know more about Tampax, P&G shifted a chunk of advertising from TV to print and created a Web site called Beinggirl.com. "It's hard to convey a lot of information and stuff that's kind of personal in a 30-second TV ad," says Ted Woehrle, vice-president for North American marketing. "Print and online were terrific."
5 Think Broadly
Rather than define itself by its products, P&G has expanded its mandate to become a solver of every problem in the home. While toothpaste rival Colgate-Palmolive Co. (CL ) was focusing on the tube, P&G grabbed greater "share of the mouth" with innovations such as the inexpensive spin toothbrush and premium-priced Whitestrips teeth-whitening kits.
Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL ), which was late to market with its digital music player, the iPod, took the lead nevertheless with a combination of great product design and marketing brains. But why were consumers willing to accept a computer maker as a consumer-electronics company? Because Apple made its brand stand not for desktop computing but for imagination and fun. "The iPod is about creative people doing creative things," says David Placek, president of Lexicon Branding in Sausalito, Calif.
Such thinking can fuel a rise to megabrand status in a fraction of the time it once took. The proof: Starbucks Corp. (SBUX ) The Seattle-based coffee chain does plenty of core innovation. Credit for part of its holiday profit surge of 31.2% belongs to its new pumpkin spice latte. But that's just the start. Anne Saunders, senior vice-president for marketing, sees the cafés not just as a place to slurp java but as somewhere "to connect with other people or as a getaway." That broader vision has led to offerings such as music and wireless Web connections.
Today, 30 million people visit a Starbucks each week. The average customer stops in 18 times a month. With no tagline and sparse traditional advertising, Starbucks has gone from an idea to being one of the most popular and valuable brands on the planet in under 20 years. "Starbucks, based on the old model, shouldn't be able to happen," says Kelly O'Keefe, CEO at brand strategy firm Emergence. But it has -- and it's a whole new world.
By Nanette Byrnes in New York and Robert Berner in Chicago, with Wendy Zellner in Dallas, William C. Symonds in Boston, and bureau reports
http://mktgandmgmt.utep.edu/Branding-%20Five%20New%20Lessons.htm
Taglines DD:P&G keeps Men in Black dandruff-free
http://www.bandt.com.au/news/9c/0c00ec9c.asp
Bonus dd:The Art & Science Of An Advertising Slogan:
http://www.adslogans.com/ans/creslo01.html
http://www.adslogans.co.uk/ww/prvwis15.html
Bonus dd 2: taglines and brand equity building/awareness http://www.themanagementor.com/kuniverse/kmailers_universe/mktg_kmailers/P&G_Shines.htm
http://www.anonymous.com/archives/000043.html
http://www.brandchannel.com/images/papers/Corporate_branding.pdf
MSN Hires Dr. Gary Flake
We're thrilled to announce that Dr. Gary William Flake has joined the Microsoft as a Distinguished Engineer; Dr. Flake is the first person outside the company to be hired as a distinguished engineer (DE).
Dr. Flake comes from Yahoo where he led their research and development efforts, focusing on creating the next generation of Web search. At Microsoft he'll be responsible for bridging the innovation happening between Microsoft Research and MSN and for setting the technology vision and future direction of the MSN portal, web search, desktop search and monetization engine.
Here's the short bio from his homepage:
Dr. Flake joined Yahoo! with the acquisition of Overture in 2003 to lead Yahoo!s research and development efforts, focusing on creating the next generation of Web search. Prior to joining Overture, he was a research scientist at NEC Research Institute and the leader of its Web data-mining program. He has numerous publications spanning over 15 years which have focused on machine learning, data mining, and self-organization. His other research interests include Web measurements, efficient algorithms, models of adaptation inspired by nature, and time series forecasting.
Dr. Flake has served on numerous academic conference and workshop organization committees and is a member of the editorial board for the Association for Computing Machinery's Transactions on Internet Technologies. Dr. Flake, who earned his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park, also wrote the award-winning book, The Computational Beauty of Nature, which is used in college courses worldwide.
And here are a few links for further reference:
Gary’s Yahoo Bio
Gary’s Yahoo homepage
Gary starts work on MSN Search at the end of June. We're extremely happy to have him on board!
Oshoma Momoh
General Manager, MSN Search Program Management
posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2005 12:02 PM by msnsearch
# re: MSN Hires Dr. Gary Flake @ Thursday, April 14, 2005 12:04 AM
Although I realize it must be an unfortunate name for Gary and his family, the phrase "Dr. Flake comes from Yahoo" makes it really hard to keep a straight face. Not the rolling on the floor kinda funny, just that unexpected laugh-snort when your brain realizes what it just read.
ghostdev
# Yahoo R&D Chief goes to MSN Search @ Friday, April 15, 2005 8:21 AM
Anonymous
# Yahoo R&D Chief goes to MSN Search @ Friday, April 15, 2005 8:21 AM
Anonymous
# Yahoo! this Week @ Friday, April 15, 2005 11:55 AM
It's a busy week so far for Yahoo. First they lost the head of their labs, head of research and chief scientist Gary Flake, to MSN Search then appointed a new head without missing a beat. Yahoo's chief data officer,...
Anonymous
# re: MSN Hires Dr. Gary Flake @ Saturday, April 16, 2005 10:59 AM
I had the honor of working in the same department with Gary Flake early in his post-graduate career, and it was apparent then that he had the markers of future greatness. Not only brilliant, but a gentle spirit, and possessed of the kind of common sense and ethical grounding that would make him a team leader who you'd want to work for. MSN got lucky to catch him. Congratulations!
George A. Drastal
R&D Consultant
drastic
# Gary Flake, to MSFT @ Sunday, April 17, 2005 7:09 PM
I've pinged Gary and asked if he'll give Searchblog an interview, I've known him for a while, since about 2002 when I started working on the book idea. Gary was chief scientist at Overture, then head of research at Yahoo. This is a major coup for MSFT, certainly. I'm eager to find out what really behind the move. Was it a lack of interesting stuff to work on at Yahoo? A bad fit after the Overture integration? In any case, I hope to have more soon. Meanwhile, the /. thread is here, MSN blog post is here. Webmasterworld thread here. Gary's old Yahoo home page....
Anonymous
http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/04/12/407637.aspx
MSN Steals Head Of Yahoo Labs: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050412-045252
Yahoo research Labs: http://research.yahoo.com/staff.shtml
Behind the Scenes at Yahoo Labs, Part 1,2,3
Part 1:http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3372051
Part 2:http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3374821
Part 3:http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3377731
One On One Wiht Bill Gates:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=506354&page=1
Microsoft Chairman Talks to Peter Jennings About Innovation, Competition, Goals
JENNINGS: What does it mean to be the Chief Software Architect?
GATES: Well it means that there are a lot of business issues and concerns and you know final decision making that the CEO Steve Ballmer gets to worry about, and I get to worry about the technical strategy. What are we doing with the products? And so five years ago, when I was still CEO, the percentage of time I got with the engineers was going down. It had gotten down to almost less than a third of my time. And now I get to focus the vast majority of my time on exactly those software design issues.
JENNINGS: Can you tell me two things that you have changed your mind about in the last year about, in the last year, about technology?
GATES: Well let's see. There are some things that we are always thinking about. For example, when will speech recognition be good enough for everybody to use that? And we have made a lot more progress this year on that. I think we will surprise people a bit on how well we will do on our speech recognition. Also the idea of how the phone and the PC are coming together. Where you will be able to see the calls that you missed, or even when your phone rings see immediately who that is that's calling, or control how that is forwarded, or even set it up so that the screen is part of your interaction. We are seeing that as increasingly important and are putting a lot of research into that.
JENNINGS: And are there a couple of things about technology in the last couple of years that you have simply said — don't need to go there, don't want to go there or can't go there?
GATES: Anywhere that we can have software work for somebody and make them more productive, help them stay in touch. We're going to write software for them. So we do software for watches, for phones, for TV sets, for cars. And some of these take a long time to catch on. In fact it's just this last year our software for cable systems, for TV watching, has really gotten a lot of customers and we have working on that for over 10 years.
Case Study: Virgin Mobile - Richard Crab – Design Director, Start Creative
Start Creative deliver brand and digital solutions and Richard’s talk focused on their relationship with client Virgin. They operate at a strategic managerial level with Virgin as well as working with the brand divisions. Richard identified the 'brand gap' as an integral issue for any business, as the word 'brand' itself has a brand problem. But, he continued, it's too simplistic to blame media for product failures.
Discussing how powerful brands contribute to market value, he used the example of when Mannesman bought Orange and kept the acquired brand intact. On the question of how you create a brand Richard quoted Einstein "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Knowledge tells you where you’ve been, imagination tells you where you want to go. [Einstein himself continued: "Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world".]
Virgin’s brand has long been associated with standing up for the consumer against monopoly giants and rip-off services. They produce a brand book which is a collection of Virgin culture over the years. Such is their reputation that they're more trusted than the Bank Of England and 73% of consumers polled say a bad experience won't detract from what they think of the Virgin brand. The link to the real person in the form of Richard Branson humanises the brand in tandem with its philosophy of people first. The colour red has also served them well over the years.
But there’s no standing still or resting on laurels, he explained. Keeping an eye on culture counts, such as the modern student culture which chooses Gervais over Guevara (illustrated in a Gervais-as-Che poster). But identity is about more than a good logo, a truth embodied by the artist Banksy – he’s more about what he's saying, not about the stencil approach. Former ITV director Jim Hyntner said: “You can intellectualise brands out of your bottom. I just want our new look to make people feel better,” relying on the logo again. Adbusters' parodies of logos debunked this ages ago. But whether you're pro-logo or no logo, how can you argue against Evian supporting the Lido in the face of closure? Rankin said: "Say something, stand for something, but keep it unmediated."
Richard believes it’s essential that brands have stories, like The Streets when he was launched into the music market. A Chomsky reading activist, on the other hand, might be more tickled by the intellectual jokes of The Economists’ adverts. Authenticity is a great boon. Reebok borrow equity and cool, whereas Boxfresh’s recent ads show you real youth in the 1970’s. They use that equity but don’t try to borrow it.
Affinity is another strength. By being real you create a real affinity. Mobile phones express so much about their owner's personality (Nokia are predicting 70million 3G phones in use by then end of 2005), so brands in mobile space have scope to build very personal affinities. Other clear affinities are found in the Co-op brand’s corporate social responsibility, Calmia’s transformational ethics ("everything you need for holistic lifestyle"), and Radio 4’s emphasis on discussion and thinking.
Finally Richard emphasised trust as a core brand strength, citing Virgin Mobile's tagline of 'Pick me up, turn me on, use me to your heart's content.' Their brand is about access and at the launch of retail there was no con and no contract. Virgin Mobile’s proposition was all about communicating and not about technology. To prove just how accessible it is, the customer catalogue gives you all you ned to know about the service. Working with Virgin, Start Creative created a bespoke retail identity that wasn’t about the corporate manual but about how you flex, as per the localisation of outlets led by the location-specific signage and interactive interior for the basement store below Virgin's music store (formerly Tower Records) in Picadilly Circus.
When they were considering added value Start Creative looked at services like Vodaphone Live, MTV and Sky. They looked at other things filling the moments of boredom. They ended up going for pure, bite-sized entertainment on their mobile phone portal (created by Que Pasa) making "honest sense" out of the WAP technology. And they’ve engaged with new channels through the Sky red button where 450,000 people spent over 5 minutes in their branded environment without buying anything – the meaning and affinity generated through this added value experience being an end in itself.
http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2005/03/20/rethinking-digital-branding
AN NMK TOPIC > Digital Marketing
by: NMK posted: 2005/04/22
http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2005/04/22/virtual-locative-tagging
One important role I see for the future of the mobile phone is as a bridge between the physical world and the digital one. An aspect of this will be the ability to leave a virtual message or tag attached to a place or object, for others to find and read/see...
By Russell Buckley
[Register and post your own comments on this article below...]
For instance, London has its famous Blue Plaques, which are plaques (blue ones, funnily enough) affixed to houses where famous people lived, like the plaque at 221b Baker Street celebrating Sherlock Holmes (actually, it's on number 221, as 221b is as fictional as the detective himself).
If you visited it, your phone could give you access to a wealth of information "hidden" virtually at the site. This could range from more biographical information on Sherlock and his sidekick, Dr Watson, to the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.This potentially brings the Wikipedia into the physical world, enriching it beyond measure.
Personalised geo-tags versus spam
Obviously, you wouldn't need a visual plaque to tell you that there was information available, providing that your phone could alert you to it. And that the phone was instructed as to the type of information you would find interesting, and more importantly, messages you didn't want to get. One man's valuable information is another woman's spam.
Such tags wouldn't have to be purely informational. They could be commercial too - maybe offering you a discount off a Sherlock Guided Tour or a coupon for a local bookshop. People have been talking about Location Based Marketing for years, but this could make it reality. Clearly, in order to work, this would have to be strictly opt in and policed mercilessly.
Messages could also be personal, although there would need to be a clear advantage over direct contact by sms or voice. But an example might be a scavenger hunt, where people followed clues from location to location - like the exploding sport of geocaching works today
Multipurposeful applications…
Or maybe I want to set a location based reminder to myself that the next time I walk down this street, I need to visit a shop which is currently closed. Yes, there are other ways of doing this, but location-based alerts might offer a better solution in specific instances.
This type of system doesn't need to be restricted to a place. In a book shop, you could scan the barcode with your phone or input the ISBN code into (say) a Java application on your phone and see the Amazon or epionions peer reviews on the book.
Or in a library (remember those?) or art gallery, you could see what previous readers/visitors thought or get together online, or physically, to discuss it, if you wanted to.
Or scan a product in the supermarket to find out more about the product ingredients, including what that innocuous looking E number actually means.
As you'll appreciate, the list is endless (including many applications for sex and porn, as many reviewers of this article noted), as well as being transformational.
This kind of technology is now in the process of being deployed, whether we're talking Siemens' Digital Graffito or scanning barcodes.
There are clearly many issues to overcome to make this a reality, not the least of which is who polices and controls this virtual content. For instance, what's to stop an unscrupulous restaurateur from posting a fictitious and favourable review of his establishment? But Wikipedia has demonstrated that there are ways of managing this kind of issue most of the time.
However, if this system is introduced, I believe that it will enrich the world around us in a non-polluting way and make the world an even more fascinating place.
[Register and post your own comments on this article below...]
About the Author:
A leading practitioner and commentator in mobile marketing, Russell Buckley has spent 15 years in marketing, working with brands such as Coca-Cola, Diageo, BT, Texaco and Mars. In 2000 he helped found ZagMe, as Marketing Director. A location based advertising channel in Lakeside and Bluewater shopping malls that sent direct marketing messages via SMS from retailers in the malls to an opt-in consumer base of shoppers in the malls on that day, Zag Me signed up 85,000 consumers and 150 retailers, running some 1,500 campaigns. Since then, Russell has consolidated his reputation as a thought leader in the mobile space. He wrote "Messaging Applications Yearbook - The Definitive Guide to Strategy, Creation and Deployment" published by Mobile Streams for $495 and a free White Paper on Location Based Marketing (available by emailing russell AT mobhappy DOT com). Russell consults in Mobile Marketing for agencies and their clients and is a founding partner of Unstatic (www.unstatic.co.uk), a specialist in advanced mobile applications for a range of brands in financial services, youth, telecoms and the media. Keep up with Russell's mobile and locative media ruminations on his blog www.mobile-weblog.com
"...Szkutak said Amazon.com would continue to hire computer programmers to work on the company's new search features and Web services. Amazon.com debuted its search engine division, A9.com, in October 2003, but last quarter the company unveiled new features and intensified efforts to grab a larger piece of the lucrative search engine market, dominated by Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc..."
Amazon.com Profit Declines 30 Percent
Tuesday April 26, 6:49 pm ET
By Rachel Konrad, AP Technology Writer
Amazon.com Profit Falls 30 Percent Despite Strong International Sales, New Membership Progra
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050426/earns_amazon_com.html?.v=6&printer=1
A9 101 - side dd:
1.) A9.com Transforms Traditional Yellow Pages with more than 20 Million Images of Businesses and Their Surroundings
New "Block View" technology lets users virtually walk streets and see businesses
2.) http://a9.com/-/company/media/index.jsp
Why Use A9?: http://a9.com/-/company/whatsCool.jsp
Googling on the Go: Is the Future of Search in Your Pocket?
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=32598
April 25, 2005
By: Dave Pasternack
and Bill Wise
It shouldn’t be that hard to find a pizza place, especially in New York City. A stroll down any West Side street should reveal at least five Original Ray’s Pizzerias, among many other chains and small establishments. Mobile and SMS search providers, however, namely Google and Yahoo, make it seem like a chore. And they have a simple solution.
Mobile search is the natural outgrowth of the search culture built by Google and Yahoo. We use search engines to get directions, find local businesses, look up telephone numbers, shop and search for answers and information. Rarely do we need all that when we are sitting in front of our computers. We need that information on the go -- and the Internet has bred us to expect immediately and for free, without calling friends, flipping through phone books and guides or dialing 411 for 99 cents a call.
With new offerings from Google and Yahoo, all that information is now accessible from any wireless device: cell phones, PDAs (both Windows CE and Palm based) and Blackberries. You can search anywhere you can get a signal -- with nearly all the capabilities of the Web-based engines.
There are three primary methods of accessing Web-based content via a wireless device: WML, XHTML and SMS. SMS, which stands for Short Messaging Service, is the simplest technology, usually used to send and receive text messages. WML stands for Wireless Markup Language and is used for WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) enabled devices, like many mobile phones and PDAs. XHTML stands for Extensible HyperText Markup Language, and is a form of regular HTML used in Web pages. XHTML conforms to strict standards and allows Web sites on your wireless device to look as close as possible to their computer counterparts.
Each technology has its advantages and shortcomings. SMS is universally accessible on wireless devices, but it lacks the pizzazz of an HTML page. Google is currently the only search provider using SMS to provide search results to mobile devices. Google’s unique service works like this: The user sends a text message with a search request to 46645 (GOOGL), and Google sends back a text message (or messages) with the answer.
You can use Google SMS to conduct local searches (text the category or business name and the ZIP code or location to GOOGL); to look up residential phone book listings; to get driving directions; find movie show times; get weather forecasts; check flight times; and see instant stock quotes. You also can text a question to GOOGL and get a response using Google’s Q&A. Other Google search features work here, too: Use define to get a definition, enter an area or ZIP code to look up; use the calculator feature or enter a word to spell check. Froogle and regular search results also can be accessed via Google SMS.
Google SMS stands out as the simplest way to access Google’s database. You don’t have to connect to the Internet (a plus for those who get charged by the minute or by KB downloaded), and the results are saved as text messages. The only cost to the service is that of sending a text message. SMS’ simplicity also is its biggest detraction. All you get is a text message, with no option of linking to a page or automatically calling a local result. For pure text information, like weather, flight times, checking a price when you’re in a store, Google SMS excels.
Both engines also offer enhanced WML/XHTML products that can be accessed by WAP-enabled mobile devices. These are closer to the traditional engines, just in a smaller, more condensed form. Both offer Web search, with only titles shown, and image search that allows you to download images to your mobile device. Yahoo even offers image storage; snap a photo with a cell phone and e-mail it to your Yahoo account.
One of the most promising features of mobile search is the ability to do local searches. Enter in a business name or type and the ZIP code or location in which you are looking, and Google and Yahoo quickly return a list of local matches. Highlight the phone number in the listing and you can automatically call it from your cell phone. Both also provide maps and driving directions to help find your location; Google’s new clearer map technology really shines here.
Yahoo Local excels in the WAP search, as it’s based on Yahoo Local search, which acts more as a yellow pages than Google Local, which is based on the search engine. Yahoo Local even provides ratings so you can pick the best pizza store in your neighborhood.
Google Mobile also offers Froogle to find prices on the go, and the unusually helpful “Number Web” feature, which lets you enter search results simply as numbers and have Google guess what you are searching for. Google Mobile accurately guessed that 14992 was “pizza.” Yahoo offers a slew of features, like the Yahoo site, including news, alerts, games, messenger, e-mail (Yahoo Mail only), sports, finance, weather, movies and your Yahoo address book and calendar.
Overall, Google and Yahoo mobile versions don’t differ greatly from their regular sites. Google is simple and streamlined and Yahoo is rich with features. On the go, Google offers better options for quickly finding information, while Yahoo offers more information about local results -- as well as many great features to help pass time on the go.
Yahoo also has made the first steps to mobile/WAP advertising. After you log in, a single sponsored link appears above all your options. Does that mean a future of unique mobile PPC advertising, behavioral marketing on our phones that tracks our calling behavior, text ads on WAP-enabled sites? We don’t know. But the ad on Yahoo Mobile was for free “The Apprentice” tickets -- and we clicked it.
David Pasternack is president and co-founder and Bill Wise is CEO of Did-it.com, New York. Founded in 1996, Did-It delivers profits through a proprietary customized campaign management platform that updates keyword bidding strategies in real time while also providing a platform for execution of sophisticated conversion enhancement tests. For more information, e-mail them at info-dm@did-it.com or visit www.did-it.com.
Power Lunch...Hi, had an early lunch break here so I figured I'd chime in and wanted to comment that I am never ceased to be amazed in my short tenure here at the detailed follow-up and dd here from everyone, amazing....I was looking at a lot of past releases last night after work and ss9173 and I think a few others fwiw were correct about their timing of PR's.. mostly at 8:30 am and 11:30 am with a few exceptions such as Mr. Copus pr concerning his appt last week and a few other misc ones fwiw...Anyway, thanks, your posts about pr timing, etc gave me a good excuse to go back last night and review all of their past pr's, iow I forced myself and channel my frustrations into something positive by dding more while building my knowledge base on this neomedia...Overall, I am quite impressed at how well the management is executing their business plan and positioning for the future, sure its one thing to read all the dd here and comments, but quite another to see the solid foundation they apparently building in preparation to catch the wave of opportunities in the business world that are presenting themselves at the moment (via news releases)..remember, like so many companies after September 11th who almost went out of business or ended up doing so by releasing entire staffs across many industries (and continue to do so with the ongoing globalization pressures that continue to shape the modern day business world), Neomedia has appeared imo to hang on and rebounded, plain and simple....and unlike many industries that have spewn out carnage all over as a result of consolidatory actions/pressures exerted for any number of reasons, Management at Neom appears to me to be executing a business plan that will capitalize on the paradigm shift in media, communications, etc etc,,,,instead of job cuts, they are actually hiring arms, legs and very qualified bodies of individuals with exceptional skill sets fitted for the markets they are targeting and whose talent imo will help execute the ongoing business plan senior management has crafted and laid out previously.
I suppose I see the glass as half full and I am glad to be a part owner of this company now and since I have a long term interest and not just a short term renter/day trader pond scum-bottom feeder mentality whom is out for the quick buck in this sometimes cesspool of otcbb MM trading, I am pleased to say that I support neomedia win,lose or draw for taking the risks and preparing for the opportunity that their vision tells them will help the company capitalize on current trends. Seach being only one opportunity imo evolving as a result of this new paradigm and Neom is stategically leveraging their software and other capabilities/technology against the continuing evolution of the transistor, current migration away from pc's, tv's into a whole new world of content delivery across new mediums and bridges of which I am betting on at least one of the bridges being owned by Neomedia technologies with some of their patents (gasping for breath)....ok, have a good one....
Bonus dd to take the edge off the day:
A Midlife Crisis for Tech?
Don't bet on it. Despite recent wobbles, the sector's talent for making chips more productive assures its future
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2005/tc20050421_0171_tc024.htm
GLTA and hold 'em tight!
sog
LOL, Well Said!
So many emotions running high of late eh??? Anyway, still long here and this is exciting, I will not forget why I am here and hopefully neither will any of other longs, so glta and look forward to the multitude of what's coming down the pipeline as so many have laid out here for us to study and as we expect....Please keep up the good work!
sog
Google's New-Old Ad Model
Advertisers will pay per view and control where ads are run in Google’s new approach to an old advertising model.
April 25, 2005
Google shares rose 3 percent Monday on news the search giant will add traditional cost-per-view advertising to its money-spinning repertoire of advertising vehicles.
While Google’s cost-per-view advertisers will pay based on the number of people who view their ads, cost-per-click advertisers pay by the number of web viewers who actually click on their ads.
The Mountain View, California company will also announce that it is offering its adverting clients the option of specifying the web sites where their ads will run.
Currently advertisers have no control over where in the Google marketing network their ads appear. Google uses an auction system based on relevance and revenue to determine where ads are displayed.
The combination of adding cost-per-view and giving advertisers more control over where their ads are displayed brings Google more in line with other online advertisers, such as DoubleClick, and traditional print advertisers.
The company believes cost-per-view fits some advertisers better than cost-per-click. But Google is not abandoning the advertising model on which it has built its very successful business. Google earned $369.2 million in the first three months of this year, a nearly six-fold improvement that lifted its stock to new peaks last week.
The stock climbed another $6.67 to $222.48 in recent trading and some Wall Street analysts expect it to hit $300 within a year.
The company will continue to use the auction system for cost-per-click advertisers. It will run the two systems in parallel and gather data on viewers’ response to the two models and eventually come up with relative pricing based on that data.
dd: What Business Are You In?
by Ari Rosenberg, Friday, Apr 8, 2005 8:04 AM EST
IF YOU WORK WITHIN THE media sales industry, the answer to this relatively simple question continues to splinter. That is because the media industry has evolved like a teenage boy who wakes up a few inches taller than when he went to bed. The change appears to be overnight.
The dramatic paradigm shift the business of selling advertising has experienced can be traced back to the addition of its newest medium, online advertising. Online advertising has changed the way all media buyers and sellers converse.
Subsequently, these conversations have "tipped" in favor of the buyer so strongly that the traditional business of publishing is being crushed (the tipping point for those "Gladwellians" was the advent of pop-up advertising - more on that later).
To understand where the trouble lies for traditional publishers, you first need to look at the advertising business as a whole, with publishing as a subset. The advertising business functions on the relationship that exists between three components. The consumer of content, the publisher who serves it, and the advertiser who joins in like a third wheel who picks up the dinner tab.
The traditional publishing formula established within this structure is this: Extend resources to acquire loyally engaged consumer attention and exceed expenses by selling access to it. Publishing companies that existed prior to the Internet have built their organizations to operate within this traditional formula for making money. This access sold to their collected consumer attention has morphed to provide more creative points of entry for advertisers, such as "branded entertainment" for example, but the sales message for this model remains the same. Publishers "deliver access" to a demographically appealing, loyally engaged, audience.
This sales message changed dramatically however, when Internet publishers launched themselves into the media mix by initially hyping the action of their audience over the access to reach them. Despite attempts to change this perception, the nuts and bolts of online advertising are terms and metrics from the business of direct marketing, not traditional publishing.
At pure Internet publishers like Yahoo! and search publishers like Google or Ask Jeeves, employee answers to the question "what business are you in?" will be direct-marketing centric. They have to be, because online buyers have tipped the conversation that way and in turn, these non-traditional Internet publishing companies have constructed their companies and have invested their resources to earn revenue (especially search publishers) by effectively performing direct marketing functions for their clients.
The problem for traditional publishers, who existed prior to the birth of the Internet and have extended their content brand online, is that they now have employees operating in a business their company is not in.
The traditional publishing sales force and infrastructure are not equipped to sell direct marketing initiatives successfully. They do not have the resources or trained experience to compete with buyers employing direct marketing tactics and the negotiated deals reflect this dominance.
I received an e-mail recently from a veteran media sales rep who currently sells online. She bemoaned the fact that a traditional ad agency sent her "an rfp [request for proposal] for a well known electronics brand on a cost per acquisition [aka CPA] basis." She then went on to ask rhetorically "When is this BS going to be over?"
Unfortunately, it is just the beginning.
The evaluation of media partners, online and offline has a return on investment (ROI) mentality thanks to the terminology and metrics introduced by online advertising, which we now know is in the direct marketing business.
The direct marketing business is a pretty good business. I have never worked in it, but my sister-in-law has for many years. She loves it. She rents lists. Her company invests in tools to make sure their lists are vibrant and active. They do not however, invest resources in editorial branch offices all over the world.
In the traditional publishing business, the mission is to deliver compelling content that holds and cradles the attention of their reader. However, this publishing goal is now counterproductive because advertisers will continue to reward publishers not on their ability to hold their readers attention, but rather on the rate in which they can transfer this attention so it can be further evaluated on how well it converts to customers.
Finally, any reader of any content online will tell you, pop-up like advertising of any kind is the most displeasing experience they can have. Pop-up ads that cover up content (as opposed to fitting along side or in-between) demonstrates a lack of respect for the reader, while promoting the obvious agenda of an advertiser dressed in direct marketing wool.
For a traditional publisher with traditional publishing values that place the needs of readers above all else, to serve any pop-up like advertising on their Web site is an indication of how confused they are as to what business they are in.
Ari Rosenberg is a media sales consultant. Prior to starting his company, he was the vice president of sales at IGN.com. He can be reached through www.performancepricing.com.
C:\Documents and Settings\Don\Desktop\DD TO POST NEOM 2_25.htm
Charts? Charts? I Don't Need No Stinkin Charts! lol
Anyway, I'm scared ohhhhhh, as a matter of fact, so scared I averaged up today, lol...
In any event, all kidding aside, the more I dd, the more confident I remain, although, I'll admit, we are wired to fear that saber tooth tiger, so some run and when I saw running today, I bought...something like that...
Have a good nite...and all jmho...
sog
Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I am having a tough time sleeping, lol...anyway, glta and win lose or draw, should be a neet week(s)...
sog
Good Read: The Cluetrain Manifesto
http://www.searls.com/cluetrain/
End Of Weekend Thought: After fully digesting this google earnings data released from last Thursday and subsequent commentary from all over, fwiw, what imo is is going on is a true paradigm shift in the natural evolution of the transistor and Kuhn's scientific revolutions theory...something like that, and in this stage of the evolutionary process, finnally "breaking away" from traditional pc's....I am not even sure if Neom management has realized it yet fully as one can only help shape evolution, not force it, however, the more dd I read, the more I get proven wrong about that last assumption (especially if neom management put all on "ice" for the 10 years as mentioned and prepared for the opportunity that presented itself with the picture phone (algorithms, amazing) as we all are seeing now because we do not have the paradigm paralysis many do......this also ties in I think with the sudden collapse of network anchorman, stations, tivo, espn and nbc going to football etc etc (a true migration into the abyss, lol)....I suppose I am thinking, neom will be only part of this paradigm shift (imagine that, just a part to cope how significant this will be in the coming years) and I feel so many other companies in the earnings world as well as ordinary individuals that will all be a part of the migration towards true info at your fingertips and convenience, transparency and portability of their own "wavelength" so to speak and individuals in academia will be a part of it as well.....a true awe inspiring notion...
End of tangent and have a nice evening...appreciate your and others efforts...
sog
I see The Light Now, thanx,a picture is worth a thousand words
alogarithims are catured and the back end can handle all the complexities....jmho...nite nite
Sunday Night reading dd (thanks pooh)
*************************************
Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bear?
SmartMoney
By Donald Luskin
April 22, 2005
DIRE HEADLINES. PANIC SELLING. Hundred-point swings in the Dow. The smell of fear has been in the air for weeks. What's the stock market so afraid of?
Whatever's been spooking investors, it must be big. Even after Thursday's rally, stocks are still very cheap. Before Thursday, if the S&P 500 had fallen just 5% further, it would've been as undervalued as it was at the panic bottom in October 2002, the climax of a thousand-day bear market that was the worst since the Great Depression.
The bad news is that I can think of several risks big enough to cause those kinds of worries. The good news is that these risks are just risks, and none of them is likely to become reality.
If I'm right, then equities are a bargain right now. As soon as the market realizes there's not as much to worry about as feared, stocks could rally by as much as 40% just to get back to normal valuation levels.
But on the other hand, what if I'm wrong? What if these risks are realized? In that case stocks aren't cheap, and you can forget about that 40%. But since the market has already discounted so much potential bad news, stocks probably don't have that far to fall.
High on the list of worries lately has been the idea that economic growth is slowing. I don't see it. Sure, IBM (IBM) had a bad couple of weeks in March, but Intel (INTC) and Texas Instruments (TXN) don't seem to have had any problems. The Empire State manufacturing index came in weak a couple of weeks ago, but then on Thursday the Philadelphia Fed's index was just as big a surprise on the upside.
Readers of this column know that inflation has been one of my worries for over a year, and recently it has burst into the headlines. So now everyone's worried about it — which is precisely why I'm not anymore. Now that everyone's focused on it, especially the Federal Reserve, the inflation problem is on the way to being solved.
How about tax policy? There's so much turmoil in Washington right now — everything from a bitter debate over Social Security modernization to the risk of using a "nuclear option" in the Senate to get federal judges approved — that the extension of the pro-growth tax cuts on dividends and capital gains isn't getting the fast-track attention it deserves. President Bush campaigned on making them permanent, and now it looks like they'll just be extended by two years. That's a disappointment, but not a calamity.
There's another tax risk, too. President Bush has said "everything's on the table" in the Social Security debate in order to gain support from Democrats — and that means he's willing to talk about eliminating the cap on wages subject to payroll taxes. That would have the effect of rolling back the 2003 tax cuts for over 10 million workers — a catastrophe. But it's a low-probability risk, because the president is fundamentally opposed to it, and the Republican leadership in the House is even more firmly opposed. If that's the price of reform, then there'll be no reform.
In my view the biggest risk is the possibility that the government will do something really dangerous and stupid with respect to China.
Two weeks ago two senators — New York's Charles Schumer, a Democrat, and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, a Republican — introduced an amendment that would slap a 27.5% across-the-board tax on everything imported from China, unless Beijing agrees to end its policy of pegging its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar.
The theory is that, without the peg, the yuan would sharply rise in value, making Chinese exports less attractive on world markets and U.S. exports more attractive.
For several years the Bush administration has been urging China to eliminate the yuan peg, and it's been turning up the volume in recent months. But the Schumer/Graham amendment escalates the negotiation to a whole new level. Threatening to slap huge tariffs on a major trading partner is truly a thermonuclear option — one that would have disastrous effects in China, the U.S. and around the world.
It's not in anyone's interest to destroy the Chinese success story, nor to start a global trade war.
Stocks made their lows for the year on Wednesday when Schumer told the press that the president backs the proposed legislation. Bush and Treasury Secretary John Snow have since aggressively denied it, going so far as to say it would violate World Trade Organization rules. And that no doubt was part of the market's better mood on Thursday.
But there is real risk here. When the legislation was introduced in the Senate two weeks ago, opponents called for a motion to table it. The motion was defeated resoundingly, by 67 to 33, so Senate leadership has had to promise to bring it to full vote by the end of July, and similar legislation is being concocted in the House. Sen. Graham claims there's a "wildfire" in Congress to rein in China's mighty export machine.
If that wildfire doesn't get controlled, and the Schumer/Graham amendment gets enacted, would Bush sign it into law? He's said he's opposed. He's said it violates WTO rules. But then again, this is a president who has never vetoed anything. This is the president who signed Sarbanes-Oxley, perhaps the most destructive antigrowth law of the past two decades. And even if he did veto it, the votes for a congressional override might be there.
The best hope is that China will "voluntarily" take steps toward ending the peg. Indeed, Bush broadly hinted this week that such a thing was a possibility. And that's just how I think it will play out. The only thing that's stopping China is pride. After all, no self-respecting nation wants to be seen as having its economy at the command of foreign politicians. But for diplomats, there's always a way to preserve one's pride.
Besides, what's there to be proud of in pegging one's currency to the dollar in the first place? Talk about having a foreign country run your economy!
Yes, the peg has certainly served its purpose. Sticking to it doggedly for more than 10 years has given China a lot of credibility. But while the protectionists in Congress think it will harm China to drop the peg now, I think it's actually in China's interest to do it. In fact, Alan Greenspan said the very same thing this week.
He should know, because he's what's wrong with the peg. By pegging the yuan to the dollar, China imports all of Greenspan's mistakes. It imported his deflation in the late 1990s, and it's importing his inflation right now. At this point, China is better off going it alone.
My bet is that sometime between now and the end of July China will announce its first step toward ending the peg. It won't do a darned thing to stem Chinese imports into the U.S., or bring back unskilled jobs for American workers, or cure the U.S. merchandise trade imbalance with China. Why? Because the yuan was never the reason for those things in the first place. But when that happens, stocks will soar since the risk of truly insane protectionist legislation will be off the table.
I'm no Pollyanna. I see all the risks out there. I just think they're all going to turn out fine. And even if they don't, stocks are so cheap I'm not worried that I'll lose a whole lot either way.
**********************************************
Clock Starts Ticking for Verizon
CBS MarketWatch
By Carla Mozee
April 23, 2005, 5:05 PM ET (Last Update)
[Company weighs options as MCI calls Qwest bid superior.]
Verizon Communications has five business days to consider whether to pursue its acquisition agreement with MCI Inc. or to walk away from the deal, following MCI's announcement Saturday that Qwest Communications International's $9.7 billion bid is "superior."
Qwest's revised bid puts the pressure on Verizon (VZ: news, chart, profile) to either raise its offer of $7.6 billion, worth $23.10 a share, or risk losing the fight to acquire long-distance provider MCI.
On Thursday, said that it was making its "best and final" offer for MCI. The company had given MCI a deadline of 5 p.m. Eastern Saturday to declare its bid a "superior proposal" or it would be withdrawn.
In a statement, MCI said Saturday that Verizon has five business days, until next Friday, to respond with a revised proposal.
During this time, Ashburn, Va.-based MCI added that it will continue to recommend its agreement with Verizon. The company also said that the board has until May 3 to change its current merger recommendation in favor of Verizon.
A call to a Verizon spokesman wasn't immediately returned. In a statement Saturday, the company said that MCI apparently concluded that the difference in bids "was sufficient compensation for the increased risks associated with completing the transaction and executing the business plan thereafter. ... In light of the change in this process, we will consider all of our options and determine how best to serve Verizon shareholders."
In addition, Verizon indicated that it "may elect to require MCI to continue to finalize its proxy statement and to organize a meeting of MCI's shareholders to consider the agreed transaction with Verizon.
"Alternatively, Verizon may elect to terminate the agreement with MCI," according to the statement. Verizon said it would then be entitled to be paid a $240 million merger breakup fee, plus an "expense reimbursement" of $10 million by MCI. See Verizon's statement.
Verizon, which has five times the annual revenue of Qwest, asserted that it still believes it's the best merger partner for all shareholders involved. Almost two weeks ago, Verizon announced it had agreed to buy a 13.4% stake from MCI's largest stockholder, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, to shore up support for the deal.
MCI has twice before rejected bids by the Denver-based regional phone company in favor of offers from Verizon, seeing the latter as a more attractive partner. See previous story on Qwest's latest proposal.
A call to a Qwest spokesman wasn't immediately returned Saturday. In a statement, however, the company said it was "gratified" that MCI's board recognized its offer as superior, and that it expected MCI to "build upon its declaration of superiority with specific acts of support," including expediting regulatory approval.
Qwest lacks a wireless network and needs MCI's corporate customers and global network to compete in an industry that's rapidly consolidating.
For its part, Verizon wants MCI so it can better compete against its chief rival, SBC Communications (SBC: news, chart, profile) , which plans to acquire AT&T (T: news, chart, profile) . By combining forces, AT&T and SBC would create a global giant that offers voice, data, wireless, local, long-distance, consumer and corporate telecom services.
In Friday trading, MCI shares ended up 19 cents at $26.69; Qwest was down 6 cents at $3.55; and Verizon stock closed 20 cents lower at $34.06.
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THE MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE SHAFT - AGAIN! April 22, 2005
http://www.streetsmartreport.com/comm3.html
LESNSHAWN
No need to respond fwiw....but Lol, an "oasis" that has turned into a pile of "dried up bones" ROFLOL!!!!!I have always enjoyed your enthusiasm on the boards through the years and always admired your drive and expertise exhibited in your posts...
Publicly, I want to thank you for the last time but felt to give credit where credit is due for "turning me on" to this company by posting about it as you always do and give a sound, level headed reason as to why you had such an insane thought that this could be a nice company to dd and consider investing in way back in early part of year...or at least having the smarts/kahunas to dialogue about over in the old "dried up bones" oasis, lol, and although a bit nervous about my investment so far even with the gain, it is only because of the cash I decided to put in recently over an above my original investment back in Mid-February. I expect that nervousness to dissipate with each passing day and am darn glad and lucky to be in with the position I have...but, as I agree with movieguy and a few mentors over the years whom I respected have always mentioned that "luck is where preparation meets opportunity" story when things are going good, so how timely to here that again from movieguy and especially in reply to you....it really is preparing for opportunity isn't it...and like you, maybe I feel a lot has to do with understanding how to survive and navigate through certain challenges in order to be prepared to take that risk with the opportunity that all of a sudden is smack dab in the middle of your face.....and of course all because of that one that put all those stars there i the first place....
In any event, thanks again and may we continue to have a profitable and FUN investment experience here while increasing our knowledge base in other areas...and as always, thank you to all for all the neet dd, comments and analysis...on with the show!
sog
Good DD Source for Overseas Tech: Finace Asia
A week in tech
By FinanceAsia & IRG 22 April 2005
A round-up of all the latest tech news.
http://www.financeasia.com/articles/63B53D17-9027-7E17-4BC796E668AF8066.cfm