• by Tanya Gazdik , May 5, 2008

Former Microsoft senior executive Joe Doran has been named founding CEO of Media6°, a New York-based startup that provides analytics and insights to help advertisers capitalize on the growth of social media.

Funded by Contour Venture Partners and Coriolis Ventures, Media6° uses patent-pending algorithms to produce audience analytics based on the concept that "birds of a feather flock together." The company builds on "network neighbor" data and social-graph theory that shows advertisers can achieve a lift in response rates of up to 500%.

Doran, who is moving from Seattle to New York, joins the company as it begins commercial validation, and will soft-launch the solution to advertisers. The company has been operating in "stealth mode" for the past nine months. "This announcement brings Media6° into the commercialization stage," he said. "We are running our early test advertisers through the system now to make sure everything works just right. We are signing up our 'charter advertisers' now, and will start running those campaigns as soon as possible. Our sales model is to go direct to advertisers and their agencies."

As general manager of the advertising product management team for the Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions group from 2004 to 2007, Doran led the strategy, development and marketing of Microsoft's proprietary advertising platform and solutions. He led the internal development of Microsoft's display and search advertising platforms and was a founding team member of the Microsoft adCenter platform.

Doran also led advertising acquisitions at Microsoft including Massive, DeepMetrix, ScreenTonic, AdECN and aQuantive, helping Microsoft become a contender in the interactive advertising space. Doran contributed to the growth of MSN in its early years of 2002-2004 through his role as chief of staff. Before joining Microsoft in 1999, Doran was brand group manager at General Mills, and before that he was a technical sales manager.

"From his experience directing strategy and product development across the entire Microsoft Advertising platform, Joe has an unparalleled understanding of the online advertising ecosystem," said Bob Greene, co-founder of Contour Venture Partners.

The company's advisory board includes Columbia University School of Business Professor of Marketing Dr. Joseph Plummer, who was EVP, director of research and insight development for McCann-Erickson WorldGroup; RightMedia co-founder and former CTO Brian O'Kelley; privacy expert Alan Chapell; and academics including Dr. Naveen Agnihotri, a neuroscientist and leader in the development of pattern recognition technology, and Dr. Foster Provost, who has done pioneering work regarding the social graph.

The move back to New York is part of Doran's committing to advertising technology as his core career path, he said. "I had plenty of opportunities in Seattle and in Silicon Valley, but as I looked at those opportunities, I knew that I would be spending the bulk of my time on airplanes going to New York to meet with media owners, agencies or advertisers," Doran said. "For the past four years, I have been coming to New York almost once a month. And as interactive advertising grows as a percentage of total ad dollars, the more important it is to be in New York. Not to mention that the technical and start-up community is extremely vibrant. I see a great future for technical start-ups and innovation, especially in interactive media, in the New York area."

Doran learned about the opportunity at Media6° from Brian O'Kelley, founder and CTO of Right Media and now CEO of AppNexus. "He introduced me to the venture capitalist-incubating Media6°," Doran said. "Truth be told, I had networked with quite a few people and looked at quite a few companies, and this was truly the needle in the haystack. I knew very quickly that Media6° had the right people I could work with, the right idea and the right time to market."