Startup CardStar earlier this year gave people a way to store loyalty card accounts in one place through a scannable iPhone app. Now the company will allow users to check in to locations via Foursquare when they use their loyalty cards. CardStar CTO Danny Espinoza said the new feature would help extend the Foursquare phenomenon beyond bars and restaurants to retail stores. "There's not a lot of checking-in going on at retail locations," he said. In addition to allowing someone to become the "mayor" of a local CVS or Best Buy store, it also opens the door to retailers creating a new set of rewards tied to check-ins. In addition to the Foursquare integration, the latest version of CardStar's free iPhone app adds another location-based service called Favorite Places that automatically displays the appropriate loyalty card for a given location on the phone screen after users have entered a list of retailers they frequent most. It also automatically adds Foursquare check-ins when users visit favorite places. Another new feature lets people back up and sync loyalty card numbers across multiple devices. CardStar Connect provides users with a PIN code to access loyalty card data stored in the cloud and assigned an anonymous ID to help protect user privacy. The service also provides a new channel for CardStar to present users with promotions and coupons from merchants among its 700 participating retailers. The upgraded CardStar app also includes an updated store locator and maps window for accessing neighborhood maps, merchant Web links and account links more easily. "This iteration is really our first watershed change from being a utility to being a platform that integrates third-party offerings," said Espinoza. The two-year-old Conn.-based company has 650,000 users to date who have downloaded its app 2.1 million times, primarily on the iPhone. Versions of the CardStar app for Android and BlackBerry devices were released in recent months, and the company plans to introduce an iPad app within the next two months. But Espinoza said the iPad version will be more focused on coupon distribution, since people can use it at home to sift through offers before using the mobile app to make in-store purchases. CardStar raised $1 million in first-round venture funding earlier this year and Espinoza said he expects the company to raise additional financing by year's end. NOTE: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that CardStar was based in San Francisco.
Ask.com will launch a social network Tuesday that allows people to poll the community for the best possible answer. The engine hopes to tap into the approximate 87 million people visiting the search engine monthly. The project has been in the works for seven months. The social network is built on Ask's search technology to classify and rank answers. Parent company IAC and Ask employees recently began testing the service, but the social site begins accepting more participants today as an invite-only network. The community will vote on the best answers to determine the highest quality. The three-section search box in the social community asks "what can we help you with today. Phrase the request as a question and type it into the search box before hitting return. Keywords will appear in the box that reads: "We'll get you answers from people who know about ... ". Those keywords link to profiles of people willing to answer questions. The question remains in the user community for seven days. If the answer gets a thumbs up, the question and answer moves to the top of the page. The profile also provides insight on all the questions the person answered or asked since becoming a member. Moderators on the site and technology will flag inappropriate words, questions and answers. The company has hired a room full of moderators to police the site. A "careful and slow rollout" should ensure quality, according to Scott Garell, president of Ask Networks. Ask also will add a mobile application in about two months, along with the ability to share answers on Facebook. Apple's iPhone will get the first mobile application, followed by Android. Searching and asking a question are different. The former doesn't always provide the best solution for the latter. It's the complex questions where Ask will excel, similar to the lifeline on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," Garell says. "We think the category is worth more than a billion dollars in revenue," he says. "That's taking the questions that get asked in the search engine and multiplying it by the revenue we make for searches." As the social Web emerges, Garell believes the category will continue to grow and combine social with search, as more content comes online. Businesses will have an opportunity to sign up and participate to answer questions. At first, Ask will not charge brands for "sponsored answers," but that could change in time. Another potential revenue stream could come from paid-search sponsored listings. The site will also build in social signals, the ability to share content and answers on Facebook and Twitter. Not today, but in time. Ask.com gets four times more questions as a percent of total searches typed into the box than any other search engine, Garell says. "Remember the old Ask Jeeves," he asks. "People came to us for questions, but the technology didn't live up to the expectations." In the early part of 2001, Ask bought a search engine and moved more toward search, and this year continued to build on that platform. Ask Network ranked No. 4, capturing 3.6% of the search market in June 2010, according to comScore. The site remained flat sequentially. Until now, Ask has been able to answer about 60% of questions, up from 25% during the past year -- serving them up at the top of the search page on the main site. The company has been working on this piece of the platform for the past year. Answers come from published information across the Web. Proprietary technology scans the Web, extracting and ranking answers, but the community will include unpublished information, moving the site to a 90% fulfillment and accuracy rate, as a long-term goal.
In an effort to stay one step ahead of a sophisticated network of cyber criminals who have begun using online advertising as a means of distributing malware, or malicious software code, an increasingly vulnerable online display advertising industry is adopting new procedures, protocols and systems for monitoring, detecting and thwarting attacks by so-called malvertisers before they can do much damage. In the latest move, AdMeld, a company that helps publishers ranging from Discovery Networks to Fox News sell their online advertising inventory, has struck a deal with The Media Trust to detect malware across the billions of impressions they sell to agencies, advertisers, and increasingly to malvertisers. The progression is part of an arms race that began more than a year ago, when the online advertising industry became aware that purveyors of malware were using advertising as a new "vector" for distributing code that could be embedded in tags or pixels, or cause a user's browser to be redirected to a malevolent site that could infect their computers with unsavory code that could steal their identities, or worse. Such attacks have infiltrated some of the most premium of online publishers, occasionally via their own sales organizations, but increasingly via a "self-serve" marketplace that has made it relatively easy for virtually anyone - including crooks - to plan, buy and run online advertising via an array of ad networks, exchanges and so-called demand side platforms that company's like AdMeld help publishers manage. The Media Trust is part of a new cottage industry that has emerged in response to the attacks and the growing sophistication of malvertisers, and AdMeld said it will begin using its proprietary technology to detect tags for malicious code before they are launched via publishers' sites. Most of the big players in the online display industry are beginning to lock up similar deals. In May, Rubicon Project, one of the biggest players in the self-service online display advertising marketplace, acquired SiteScout, a Seattle-based company specializing in malware detection and prevention, replacing a licensing deal it had with San Francisco-based advertising security firm ClickFacts. Like ClickFacts, The Media Trust started out as a company that helps advertisers monitor the quality of their online advertising buys, ensuring that their campaigns run only on appropriate sites and that they are not adjacent to any inappropriate or competitive content. But over time, their detection systems have evolved to deal with malicious code as malvertisers have begun exploiting the rapidly evolving online display advertising marketplace. Malvertisers sometimes embed their code into legitimate ads placed by bona fide advertisers, or they sometimes pose as authentic advertisers and agencies to distribute ads infected with code. All of the companies tracking malvertising say they marvel at the speed and ingenuity with which malvertisers adapt Madison Avenue-like techniques to distribute their code, and The Media Trust CEO Chris Olson says their behavior has recently evolved to the point that it now looks like some are executing campaigns that are as sophisticated and broad-based as some of the ad industry's leading digital agencies. "The amount of malware we are seeing is absolutely staggering," he says, noting that in the past several days alone, The Media Trust has detected dozens of discrete malware campaigns utilizing unique creative executions that have been placed across dozens of advertising networks infiltrating hundreds of publishers. "These are larger, more coordinated attacks," he says, noting that in the past, malvertisers generally, were a "hit-and-run" lot. Now Olson says they've grown more "brazen" and sophisticated, and are launching broad-based attacks simultaneously exploiting online ad networks, exchanges, and publishers. He says the campaigns seem to be as well conceived and executed as those coming from the biggest agencies on behalf of the biggest online advertisers. "I don't know if you can say they are quite as sophisticated as a VivaKi," Olson says, referring to Publicis' state-of-the-art digital media services organization, "but they are getting more sophisticated and they're definitely using a form of yield management."
Slightly reining in its ambitions, MediaMind on Monday revealed more modest terms of a planned initial public offering. In March, the online ad campaign management firm -- known as Eyeblaster until last month -- filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise up to $115 million in an IPO of common stock. At the time, it didn't reveal how many shares it planned to sell, their expected price, or where they would be listed. According to a new SEC filing, up to 5.8 million shares will be sold at $14 to $16 each, which amounts to about $73 million. Under the new terms, there will be some 18 million shares outstanding after the IPO. MediaMind said it plans to use the proceeds to establish new relationships with ad holding companies, media publishers and technology companies; and increase its global footprint. In the filing, the company also outlined some serious risks to investors. "We face significant competition from Google and Microsoft and may not be able to compete successfully with such powerful competitors," it notes. What's more: "We face intense and increasing competition from other companies within our industry and may not be able to compete successfully with such competitors." MediaMind also said the loss of a major customer, such as Microsoft, "or a reduction in any such customer's Internet advertising or marketing budget" could significantly reduce its revenue and profitability. Company representatives say they were not able to further discuss these issues on Monday. On the bright side, the company said it swung to a first-quarter profit of $42,000 as revenue jumped 40% from $11.4 million to $16 million year-over-year. Net income was $560,000, compared to a loss of $473,000 during the same period a year earlier. In the filing, MediaMind also said it has applied to be listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol MDMD. While he was not at liberty to discuss the IPO directly, Gal Trifon, co-founder and CEO of MediaMind, recently said it was not directly related to the rebranding effort. Both initiatives, he said, would help lead the company into the future. Then known as Eyeblaster, New York-based MediaMind actually filed for an IPO back in March 2008, but had to cancel its plans due to rough market conditions. Hardly an anomaly, at least 26 tech companies canceled their IPOs that year, according to Thomson Reuters data. Institutions and investors underwriting this latest IPO include J.P. Morgan Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, Pacific Crest Securities LLC, FBR Capital Markets & Co, ThinkEquity, and Broadpoint Capital, according to a preliminary prospectus filed with the SEC. As a company rooted in the world of rich media, MediaMind has more recently secured its position as an independent ad-serving platform through deals with heavyweights like GroupM's MediaCom last summer.
Signaling industry consolidation, forum network CrowdGather on Monday announced the acquisition of forum host provider Lefora. Financial terms of the all-stock transaction were not disclosed. The combined properties will offer a search engine- and social media-friendly network of forum communities that serve an estimated 90 million monthly page-views. Since its launch in mid-2008, Lefora has built up a user base of over 100,000 forum communities. While it targets technical novices, Lefora is actually known for its own strong technical infrastructure. "We now have advanced forum technology, coupled with the scale of distribution across multiple verticals that we believe is compelling to advertisers," CrowdGather CEO and founder Sanjay Sabnani said of the deal. In conjunction with the deal, Woodland Hills, CA.-based CrowdGather has also acquired a license to use the technology of embeddable forum technology provider Tal.ki. As of March 16, CrowdGather claimed to be serving over 80 million page views and reaching 4.5 million unique users monthly. As several recent deals show, CrowdGather clearly isn't waiting to grow its business organically. The company acquired digital ad agency ADISN last month for $5.5 million in stock, along with forum provider Freeforums.org in March for $1 million in cash and stock. Two years ago, CrowdGather acquired a forum site for hobbyists named Zealot.com. In general, people who contribute to online forums are more engaged in "influential" activities -- both online and offline -- than people who don't use forums, according to a recent study conducted by market research company Synovate Forum marketer PostRelease. Those who contribute to online forums were 10 times more likely than non-contributors to also publish a blog, and were nine times more likely to take an active role in organizing offline events or meet-ups for group that originally met online. Meanwhile, forum-users were 3.5 times more likely to proactively recommend a particular purchase to someone else, 3.5 times more likely to share links about new products, four times more likely to post online ratings and reviews, and almost twice as likely to share advice -- offline and in person -- based on information they had read online.
Writing that a classmate contracted a sexually transmitted disease and morphed into the devil might be a form of "cyberbullying," but does not constitute defamation. That's according to Judge Randy Sue Marber in Mineola, N.Y., who just dismissed a lawsuit against four teens accused of defaming former schoolmate Denise Finkel by taunting her online. "The entire context and tone of the posts constitute evidence of adolescent insecurities and indulgences, and a vulgar attempt at humor," Marber wrote. "What they do not contain are statements of fact." Last year, Finkel sued four of her former classmates and their parents, alleging that the students defamed her in posts to a group they created called "90 Cents Short Of A Dollar" to taunt her. The students allegedly said in posts that Finkel had sex with animals, was an IV drug user, contracted AIDS, "morfed" into the devil, and the like. But Marber found that readers wouldn't think such posts contained serious assertions of facts. "While the posts display an utter lack of taste and propriety, they do not constitute statements of fact. An ordinary reader would not take them literally to conclude that any of these teenagers are having sex with wild or domestic animals or with male prostitutes dressed as firemen." In general, only assertions of facts, and not opinions or rhetoric, can be libelous. But figuring out when statements cross the line from hyperbolic insults into factual allegations sometimes poses a challenge for the courts. In a lawsuit brought by model Liskula Cohen, for instance, Judge Joan Madden in New York ruled that the blogger behind Skanks in NYC had potentially defamed Cohen because the "thrust of the blog is that [she] is a sexually promiscuous woman." Marber also dismissed Finkel's lawsuit against the teens' parents accusing them of negligent supervision, on the theory that they allowed their children to use a "dangerous instrument" that harmed another. Marber wrote that a computer is not a dangerous instrument. In addition, she wrote, people can't sue for cyberbullying in New York. "A review of the case law in this jurisdiction has disclosed no case precedent which recognized cyber bullying as a cognizable tort action," she ruled. Finkel's lawyer, Mark Altschul, says that his client and her family are considering whether to appeal. Finkel initially sued Facebook as well, but that case was dismissed last year because the federal Communications Decency Act provides that Facebook is immune from defamation lawsuits based on posts authored by users.
Brand marketers still lack the skills and the knowledge to effectively tap Twitter to have a meaningful conversation with consumers. The site remains an important tool for listening to consumers and becoming more familiar with their needs, but a striking difference on how the two use Twitter and the limited conversations create a wedge in the conversation, according to research released Tuesday from digital marketing firm 360i. People -- not companies -- continue to tweet, according to the six-month study from 360i. More than 90% of tweets come from consumers, and marketers only authorize 8%. Only 12% of consumer tweets mention a brand. When someone mentions a brand name on Twitter, about 22% of the time they are talking about a social network; 17%, entertainment; and 17%, technology. Twitter is the top brand mentioned on the site with 34% of mindshare, followed by Apple at 22% and Google at 15%. Celebrities comprise a small portion -- 0.4% -- of the population on Twitter, but their reach is far greater than that of the average consumer, making them a small but very influential audience. The average consumer may have 300 followers, but a top celebrity has 300,000 or more. One tweet by a celebrity can turn into millions of retweets (RTs). Consumers use Twitter to share ideas, but marketers can damage a brand if they choose to turn the tool into a megaphone rather than a conversation. The study suggests that marketers tend to talk "at" people rather than "with" them, missing an opportunity to become part of the conversation. The six-month study from 360i reveals that 43% of consumer tweets are conversational -- replies to other people tweeting. Yet only 12% of marketers' tweets demonstrate active dialogue with consumers. Surprisingly, 1% of consumer tweets that mention a brand are the result of a conversation with that brand. Twitter is a reflection of daily discussions between consumers, but brands are trying to pepper their way into the conversation. Brands have the opportunity to step in, but many are not taking advantage of it, according to Sarah Hofstetter, 360i's senior vice president of emerging media and brand strategy. "When it's done correctly, a lot of great original content gets created," she says. Marketers can have a voice, but Twitter remains a tool mostly for listening to consumers in an unfiltered, un-moderated environment. Listening allows brands to better get to know existing and potential customers. In fact, 94% of tweets are personal, 92% of people on Twitter keep their tweets public, and 85% of tweets reflect original content rather than retweets (RT). When consumers have conversations on Twitter, 43% are conversational; followed by 24%, status updates; 18%, other, 12%, news; 3%, seeking or giving advice; and 1%, self promotional. Hofstetter says the biggest mistake a brand can make is setting up an account, making its presence known and not keeping up with the campaign. "Let's say you go to a party and strike up a conversation," she says. "The other person starts talking, but you just walk away." Twitter users are more comfortable sharing some personal information, but not all. About 70% of people post a picture of themselves and 66% give their location. Most don't share specifics on their age or job/career, according to the study. Hofstetter says brands need to set goals and key performance indicators to measure the return on investment (ROI). Dell does a great job of promoting products. They do a good job if their objective is sales of limited-inventory items. Compare that with Old Spice, which used Twitter as an amplification tool to get their brand talked about more. Marketing investments in social media continue to increase, but marketers still struggle with methods for validating these investments, according to Forrester Research. Some rely on ROI as a means of proving social contributions, but many benefits delivered by social media are not easily measured in dollars and cents. In the recent report, "The ROI of Social Media Marketing," Forrester Analyst Augie Ray suggests marketers need to measure financial return but shouldn't overlook other vital measures of social media success and contribution. Some of the methods Ray believes are important include developing a social media marketing Balanced Scorecard as part of the POST process, removing financial measures that are not direct and attributable, and eliminating use of the "ROI" unless you are referencing financial returns.
Blog ad network BuzzLogic Tuesday announced an $8.8 million venture funding round and the rollout of a new custom ad unit geared to driving social media engagement around a brand or promotion. Leading BuzzLogic's second-round financing is Adams Capital Management with Ackerley Partners, another prior investor, also participating. The latest round brings the total raised by BuzzLogic to more than $20 million. The new capital will be used to expand the San Francisco-based company's sales force and invest in new product development under newly hired Chief Technology Officer John Donahue. Donahue, who joined BuzzLogic this month, was previously global director of clients solutions at Omnicom Media Group. The new BuzzRoll display ad format introduced today is aimed at encouraging blog readers to interact with and share everything from company blog content and Twitter feeds to video and Facebook applications. "It's a rich media solution designed to be very engaging, interactive and viral," said Peter O'Sullivan, vice president of sales at BuzzLogic, which had a potential reach of 76.3 million unique users in June, according to comScore. Most of the ads in BuzzLogic's network run across 20,000 blogs, and are selected based on their editorial quality and influence as well as being brand-safe. The company also connects advertisers with bloggers through third-party networks such as Edify, Google Ad Sense and Bloats. While O'Sullivan acknowledges that other ad companies have previously launched their own social media-centric ad units, he argues that BuzzLogic's targeting technology is what sets the BuzzRoll apart from competitors' offerings. "It really understands where to place that unit within the conversation that makes this different from what's out there," he said. As an example, he mentioned a consumer packaged goods brand running an ad targeted at moms that features interactive recipes that will appear around conversations where people might be discussing planning a dinner party or favorite recipes. BuzzLogic says the new BuzzRoll format has already shown results, with advertisers such as cable channel CMT seeing video engagement with rates two to three times higher than industry averages (benchmarked against DoubleClick rich media ads) in beta testing. CMT used the video-focused ad to help promote a new TV series. Advertisers can track performance of BuzzRoll campaigns across the network via its analytics dashboard to learn which sites generate the highest interaction rates and track sharing activity on platforms including Facebook, Twitter and email. O'Sullivan said advertisers in CPG, entertainment and technology have shown particular interest in the new unit so far.
In the world of computer programming, an application (or "app") is a bit of computer code that sits on top of a larger platform and helps you perform a specific task. Well ... actually that's not entirely accurate. It used to be the case that each app had its own native platform. Internet Explorer was on Windows. Farmville was on Facebook. Then the great migration happened. As an industry we are witnessing a historic trend: apps that were once dependent on one platform, like Facebook or the iPhone, are now moving to multiple platforms. In some cases they're even moving directly to the Web itself. In May 2007, Facebook opened up its platform to software developers, allowing them to create apps that interact with core Facebook features. At the time, few of us knew exactly what to expect. By November of that year, 7,000 Facebook apps had been developed, and more than 100 new apps were being created every day. At the time, kids were dropping out of college by the dozens to create their own apps. Today there are more than 550,000 active apps on Facebook. Each one started with an idea or a vision, though most developers didn't actually know whether their ideas were viable at the time. Still, the process reinforced something we've known for a long time: Good things are created by those who create with a passion. That is to say, monetization comes later, but not while the creative juices are flowing. Of course, since then many apps have come and gone. But those that have thrived are now extending beyond their native platforms and some are moving to the Web. Yes, that's right. The very platforms that packed their lunch, brought them to school and gave them an education, are now watching as their beloved apps enter the Web on their own. And it's all thanks to the openness, tools and open graph that platforms like Facebook and Apple provided them in the first place.Now you can find app communities like Circle of Moms, Farmville, Dogbook and Family Tree on traditional sites and on mobile, not just Facebook. But what does this mean? And is it a good thing? For one, it's great for Facebook because it extends its marketing capabilities beyond Facebook.com and into other .com properties where people use these apps. There are more people on the Web than there are using social networking sites (it's hard to believe that not every person in the world is on Facebook, but it's true). On top of that, app developers are now able own and control their inventory beyond Facebook, while still maintaining an audience on multiple platforms. Finally, this change is also great for brands, who want to reach people, wherever they are. When it comes to brands, Michael Burke, my co-founder at appssavvy, and I have been saying for years that people are the new destination. As a brand, running a strong advertising campaign isn't about you or your site, it's about where people choose to engage with others and it's about which content they choose on their own time. In the years that come, we will see more online social activity and we will see it extend beyond Facebook to .com sites that have social components. In 2008, when we visited .com sites, we couldn't share and compare our experiences with each other in the way that we can now. Given that people are the new destination, brands have to consider what people want first before trying to reach them. What we've seen online in the last 10 years, boring and desperate requests by brands asking people to stop what they are doing and click a button to "follow" the brand, all that will soon be over. Today, it's widely understood that asking for clicks doesn't work in social environments. Traditional advertising is about as social as screaming into a crowd to get attention. Brands need to appreciate and understand that there is a conversation happening. And just as with a traditional conversation, they need to introduce themselves, pull up a chair and bring something to the table if they want anyone to listen. Fortunately, over the last 12 months or so we have seen more brands accept and embrace these changes like never before. Marketers are paying closer attention to people and their activity instead of just focusing on what message to deliver. As a result, we are seeing better campaigns being executed. Marketers are finally asking the important questions: What are people doing? How can we join? How can we provide value? How can we make a good impression? The key is to understand social activity. The Web is becoming more social. We already see great sites like Pandora and Yelp that leverage social activity and we will continue to see more sites endorse the social graph in one way or another. People will "like" and people will get what they want, when they want it. Every Web site we visit will be social. Everything we do there will be social. I predict that over the next 12 months we will stop overusing the term "social media" at every breakfast, lunch and client dinner. We will just be social together and "like" it, so to speak. Remember the first generation of "social networking" sites? MySpace and Friendster in 2005, and even companies like Bolt.com back in 1996 (where I worked at the time). We made a big fuss about social networking. Brands wanted it. Reporters wrote about it. And then one day we all woke up and said, "I'm on a social network." Then we moved on. We actually stopped overusing the term. The same will happen with social media. Only then will we truly be social.