via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/saFWhE1f524/
Thursday, 14 November 2013
The Omniture Of PR? AirPR's New Analytics Platform Aims To Show CMOs How To Invest In PR
Is PR The Missing Ingredient In Salesforce And Adobe's Marketing Cloud? AirPR Thinks So.
The Future Omniture Of PR? AirPR Now Lets Companies Measure The Effectiveness And ROI Of PR Spend
AirPR Launches A New Analytics Platform That Aims To Do For PR What Omniture Did For Advertising
The Omniture Of PR? AirPR's New Analytics Platform Gives Companies Insight Into PR Performance
Startups and PR firms have long had a halting, if not embattled relationship. Spend time talking to entrepreneurs and those working at startups, and it won't be long before one starts to get a sense of the mistrust they have for PR firms and the PR process.
One the one hand, that's because, frankly, public relations and communications aren't skills most entrepreneurs excel at or are comfortable with (and vice versa). On the other hand, as Zaarly co-founder Eric Koester wrote in a recent blog post, startups are all about math, and the job of a founder, simply put, is to make a simple math equation work: R > E.
“You need to show how you can make the revenue you earn from a customer exceed the expenses you incur to get that customer,” he writes. It's for this reason, among many others, that most founders not only pay attention to math, they're datavores. The prevailing psychology, especially in a highly technical world, is that if you can't measure and quantify the value of some activity or spend for the business, it's not worth pursuing.
So, why is there a sense that entrepreneurs struggle to find good PR firms? Well, startups, and particularly the founders and CTOs of tech-focused companies, aren't always the most “outward-facing” people to begin with. Couple that with the fact that - and take this from someone in the media - good PR people can be hard to find, and you're already halfway there.
On the other side, entrepreneurs are already data and metrics-focused, so unsurprisingly, they have trouble seeing the value in spending money on a PR firm. Why? Well, if it's an early-stage startup, capital is tight to begin with, but, really, it's the fact that the PR process is largely opaque. Traditionally, it's been difficult, if not impossible, to effectively measure Return On Investment (ROI).
In the past, PR firms and startups have used “advertising value equivalency” as a placeholder for measuring media coverage compared to a particular publication's CPM or CPI rates - or the functional equivalent thereof. But this really isn't the most effective benchmark.
If you haven't already fallen asleep, this is the thought process that led Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer to create AirPR. The startup's initial product, as we wrote in June, was a kind of “Match.com for PR.” In other words, AirPR offered a marketplace designed to match top, pre-screened PR talent with tech startups looking for (and actually able to pay for) representation that makes sense for them given the story they're looking to tell, funding, stage of development and so on.
Since then, AirPR's marketplace has served as a testing ground that has allowed it to observe and collect loads of data on how startups are approaching the PR process, what they want help with and, ultimately, how effective PR is at meeting its goals, costs, publications they want to speak to and so on. Apply the insight and trends from this formula at scale (over time) - now that the company has had 2,000 companies cycle through its marketplace and hosts anywhere between 50 and 75 active PR professionals at any given time - and one begins to see how this presents the opportunity for a real business.
Over the last six months, AirPR has worked to productize this data-driven insight into the PR process, ultimately resulting in an analytics platform that can potentially help PR professionals and companies alike measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Launching this week, AirPR “Analyst” as it's being called, attempts to enable companies to track PR efficacy at a more granular level - all the way down to revenue impact.
At a high level, the product measures a PR campaign's web traffic, the number of articles to result from it, social media conversion, performance of core messages and how online interactions drive company sales.
The product allows companies to view this information, segmented by engagement, awareness and optimization, in a single dashboard. Sounds like your friendly neighborhood analytics tool, doesn't it? And, really, that's the idea - a kind of enterprise-focused Omniture or Mixpanel for PR. Depending on the pricing plan and customization companies choose to pursue, they can also compare their metrics and performance to their competitors.
To put this in context, well, the PR industry really hasn't had much of a relationship with analytics, historically. Fouladgar-Mercer says that whereas marketing clouds like Vocus and Cision offer PR monitoring solutions, AirPR Analyst can be the first big data analytics approach to measure effectiveness down to real value.
“The only thing missing from the large marketing clouds of Adobe [read: Omniture] and Salesforce is PR,” the AirPR founder contends. And, while you can rarely trust a founder to be honest in the assessment of their own company, he has a point there. Every company has a line item for advertising and PR spend, and thanks to giants like Omniture, most companies know exactly how an increase or decrease in that advertising spend effects its bottom line.
“For PR,” Fouladgar-Mercer explains, “it's still pretty much a black box.” Companies have very little sense of the degree to which tweaking PR spend positively or negatively affects their core business metrics and their bottom line.
The other approach that could end up working in the startup's favor is that, while it's initially targeting the enterprise and large brands, the long-term goal is to increase PR performance for companies of all sizes. And if the CEO is correct and AirPR is first to market with this, then it won't matter. But the feature of AirPR's product that could have the most appeal for companies? It takes less than 30 minutes to setup and integrates with the majority of existing analytics providers, the founder claims.
In other words, without the spin, AirPR needs to start generating some revenue from more lucrative enterprise-size contracts and, once it does, it will work downstream to startups. Sure, it's Goliath over David, but that's the approach that 99 percent of founders would take. Plus, for smaller companies, there's always the AirPR marketplace and, at some point in the not so distant future, they'll get access to Analyst as well.
When asked about her experience working with AirPR's new product, “Your Network is Your Net Worth” author and former Virgin America Marketing VP Porter Gale sums it up nicely:
One major misconception about PR is that it's not a driver of revenue and sales … Some people think of PR as solely a brand awareness builder, but time and time again when the press writes a story about a company, sales tend to go up. With AirPR Analyst, marketing executives, and comms teams can track important metrics and tie them to specific business objectives.
For more, find Analyst here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/RlvbTQEfN1U/
FCC launches speed test app for Android, looks to collect mobile broadband performance data
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/qZ8B5DPSlcQ/
Wolfram working on a 'symbolic' programing language, will be its 'most important' project yet
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/c97pTKtPdMo/
Autodesk's 123D Catch app updated with enhanced capture and Photo Compass assistance
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Cw2jzX059_U/
6 Futuristic Gifts You Can Buy Right Now
via Tech http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/GGWyKu6p6yo/
Flipboard finally makes its appearance on Windows 8.1
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/GZ_sfE_357Y/
Nike+ FuelBand SE now available in Rose Gold, gives you bling-bling status for $169
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/jBZOBmTyAoI/
Pinterest's APIs let developers embed and search for pins directly on their websites
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/dJeTlGDPb_A/
Gmail for iOS adds full screen views, background refresh and new nav bar
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/3d7DatlhiY4/
BBM adds iPad and iPod support, Android and iPhone apps get new features
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/04ewK1ehku4/
The Engadget Podcast is live at 3:30PM ET!
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/jzBlVya_lhI/
First Jolla phone will launch November 27th on Finnish carrier DNA: available unlocked, on or off contract
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/GW3jq0Z2Q5A/
Personalize your Kindle cover or skin with vacation photos at no additional cost
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/xq0QFTCZI8w/
Google encourages devs and businesses to use white space with new Spectrium Database API
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/jJdY02PuvAE/
Apple pushes out iOS 7.0.4 update alongside redesigned iBooks and iTunes U apps
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/q2amCjFGmbE/
Klout.edu? Sumpto Grabs $350K To Measure The Influence Of College Students
When Sumpto launched in 2012, founder Ben Kosinski made a smart move, coining his startup as “the Klout for colleges.” At the time, the polarizing social currency company was still grabbing headlines, and the analogy made sense. Today, the analogy arguably has a little less relevance and perhaps a bit more baggage, but Sumpto continues to soldier on as a platform aimed at helping to measure the social influence of college students.
While that may sound spammy in theory, the idea is to create a tool that can measure the top social media influencers on college campuses and that adds equal value for both students and brands. Essentially, Sumpto helps brands to identify these captains of social media by analyzing a number of signals, including the ones you'd expect, like Twitter followers, Facebook friends and so on.
The startup then assigns a score from 1 to 100 to each student, allowing brands to pay to connect with these influencers. Basically, the relationship is such that brands can then send free promotional stuff to the students in the hopes that students will then use their social media bullhorns to rave about the products to their collegiate constituency.
It's part of a move on the part of brand advertising to have advocates be actual people representing the demographics they want to reach - without them being complete shills. On the other hand, just by being their popular selves, students can get access to cool free stuff - or at least that's the idea. Students are not, however, required to share their thoughts on the product or tweet about it in return for the free swag or to boost their scores.
The New York-based startup today has a roster of about 17,500 influencers and is working with more than 70 brands, who have collectively dished out rewards to over 1,800 students. As a result, Sumpto announced this week that it has raised $350K in funding from investors like SocialStarts.net and former McCANN Group CEO, Nick Brien. The startup plans to use the funding to ramp up hiring and continue with its efforts to lure additional brand partners.
Whether or not Klout is an apt comparison for Sumpto, college students represent over $120 billion in annual discretionary spending and, by coming up with a way to measure student influence and a network to help share that influence, Sumpto could be well-positioned to tap into that huge (and coveted) collegiate market. That or Klout ends up buying it and shutting it down, hard to say.
For more, find Sumpto here.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/FZF0Rppr4N4/
Fitness-tracking app Moves now supports the iPhone 5s' M7 chip, offers battery-saving mode on iOS 7
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/QmOglGXfyy4/
What to pack for a long, lonely trek across the Antarctic
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/qIOJfilHQd4/
iWork for iCloud update brings those collaborative tools we've been waiting for
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/7be982Y77Cs/
Wormhole Games Launches Its First Title, A Player-Versus-Player Tank Game
Wormhole Games, which was founded by a former Google product manager and director in charge of EA's publishing efforts, is out with its first title - a player-versus-player tank game.
Called Tank Nation, it's the brainchild of a team led by Jamil Moledina and James Kelm. Moledina has been in the gaming industry for ages, but usually in a business development role either at EA, Funzio or in running gaming magazines and events.
But it's just become time to get skin in the game.
“It's been a long time coming,” Moledina said of founding his own gaming company. “At EA, I had a biz dev title but I didn't have a headcount or budget. So I had to manage all of my published games through to shipping.”
He said he and his co-founder Kelm pored through historical genres of gaming that had done well for ideas.
“We wanted to bring back a classic genre. League of Legends adapted and simplified the classic genre of Dota and was critically and commercially successful. NaturalMotion took classic console racing and adapted it for short sessions and the free-to-play model,” Moledina said.
He said they eventually settled on the artillery genre, which had been commercially popular in the 1980s and 1990s but didn't seem to have a leading version on iOS or Android.
That was the germ of the idea for Tank Nation, where players build out a team of drivers and combat vehicles, then fight bad guys. The game has single and multiplayer modes, and monetizes through the sale of special items for combat. There are also some basic grinding mechanics too, where players can spend money to speed up tasks.
“We wanted to make sure that whether you're a player that likes to spend or not, everyone can enjoy the game,” Moledina said.
There are several worlds that players progress through with different anime, cyberpunk and assassin themes.
The company has 12 employees and has backing from investors like China's Innovation Works and angels like Khosla Ventures' Ben Ling, Guitar Hero creator Kai Huang and former Gaia Interactive CEO Mike Sego.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/GLDVRv9ljKE/
Un mapa con un millón de tuits
La gente de Maptimize ha puedo en lÃnea esta pequeña aplicación llamada One Million Tweet Map como muestra de poderÃo: básicamente muestra en tiempo real hasta un millón de tuits capturados desde la manguera de la lÃnea temporal global de Twitter.
Basta hacer unos cuantos clics para llegar con el zoom a la zona que te interese y observar; si dejas un tuit geolocalizado lo verás aparecer al cabo de un rato: el contador de tuits de la izquierda muestra cómo van aumentando al ritmo de unos 50 por segundo, hasta llegar al millón si esperas lo suficiente. Como se pueden manejar filtros y diversas zonas permite pasar un rato divertido.
(VÃa Esther.)
via Microsiervos http://www.microsiervos.com/archivo/internet/1-million-tweet-map.html
Go Launcher Developer Raises $20M From Kingsoft, Qihoo360 Ahead Of IPO
Go Launcher, an Android app maker out of Beijing that has been around for nearly a decade and has 42 million monthly active users across a portfolio of apps, just picked up $20 million in funding from Chinese antivirus software giant Qihoo360 and Kingosft.
Technically, it's Go Launcher's parent company Sungy Mobile that picked up funding ahead of an IPO.
The company filed go to public about two weeks ago, and plans to sell 7 million American depositary shares at between $9.50 and $11, making for an offering worth between $66.5 million and $77 million. Those depositary shares represent about 42 million ordinary shares in the company and the IPO could value the company at roughly $300 million.
Go Launcher is behind several Android apps including GO Launcher Ex, which lets users customize their home screen with more than 10,000 themes and GO Locker, which lets Android users open apps directly from the lock screen.
They posted $22.7 million in revenue through the first six months of this year, up 87 percent from the same period the year before. They're profitable with net income of $5.5 million in that period.
They earn revenue from selling paid apps and premium themes, extra features, advertising and purchases of literary content. The paid apps and premium themes made up more than 40 percent of the company's revenue in the first half of this year, followed by mobile reading services at 31.8 percent of revenue.
While the company is headquartered in China, about 70 percent of its user base is outside of the country.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/1MiMaNfpP18/
Facebook Open Academy puts students on real coding projects for college credits
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/5KK_RkDTHRo/
Google Now Updated With News Topics and Movie Recommendations
via Tech http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/tcZLUBvTFnk/
Fanatix Partners With ESPN To Launch Social Mobile App For Cricket Fans
Biz dev deals don't always bowl over readers, but in startup land they often point to good execution. Fanatix, the UK startup that offers a mobile-first app for sports fans to chew the fat, has done what looks like a decent bit of business. It's partnered with ESPN to release a new vertical dedicated to cricket.
Powered by ESPNcricinfo, the new “fanatic Cricket” iOS/Android app pulls in news, scores, blog posts, images, video and social other media content from ESPN's cricket brand, which claims to be the leading cricket destination online, even besting the BBC's own cricket offering.
Billed as “social-first”, the app also incorporates fanatix's “huddle” feature to let users talk smack debate the latest cricket talking points, either publicly or in private groups - huddles - with support for log in via Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
As with the startup's original app, fanatic Cricket looks to be targeting both a second screen experience for use during cricket matches - the upcoming Ashes series is being touted as the idea launch opportunity - but is also chasing the Long Tail of sports fandom, with content and features aimed at encouraging fans to check in more than just at match time.
"Cricket is perfect for a social environment; it lasts for hours, is full of controversial decisions and has a significant global diaspora that can be connected via the fanatix platform," notes fanatix CEO and co-founder Will Muirhead in a statement.
And like the main fanatix offering, the new cricket app will be monetised via so-called native advertising; ads will appear in the app's news streams, similar to ad formats found on Facebook and Twitter, delivering what the company claims will be “contextually relevant and engaging” ads to users. Well, that's alright then.
Neither fanatix or ESPN want to comment on the commercial details of their cricket partnership, though my guess is it's likely to involve at least a time-limited amount of exclusivity. What we do know, however, is that ESPN will market the new app to its 15m monthly unique users for the cricket vertical.
To that end, fanatix is also talking up the traction that its seeing overall. Monthly active users for the platform now sit at 4 million, apparently. That's up from 1 million at the end of May, when the startup announced that it had raised an additional $1 million in funding, bringing the total raised to $3 million to date. It's performing particularly well among 13- to 24-year-old males - a prime advertising demographic, notes the company.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/udn9bkVIDtg/
MapQuest updates iOS 7 and Android apps with modern UI, route status bar
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/AiygcAtsVXU/
The Sound of Racing Silence: Get Ready for an Electric Formula One
via Tech http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/o9D6cDR_0vs/
IBM preparing to launch a Watson cloud service, lease out APIs to developers
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/SM0T4fzi3OM/
Intel will open its own retail pop-up stores later this month (video)
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/9z_YoZVqUaU/
'Xbox On' command powers up and logs in Xbox One in just 13 seconds
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/cz2KXFlJwzs/
IBM to Launch Cloud-Based Development Platform for Watson Supercomputer
via Tech http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/J4_yxOo2IBM/
Solar-Powered Robot Structure May Be Roaming Toward a Park Near You
via Tech http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/lOxQ2JlfBqg/
Mozilla has no plans to sell consumer Firefox phones in the US
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/2zzXZfbZ6jg/
Online Real Estate Veteran Redfin Lands $50M From Tiger Global, Investment Giant T. Rowe Price As It Looks To Gain Market Share In The U.S.
As the real estate market regains some life after an extended dip, people are beginning to get comfortable with the idea of selling their home again and, in turn, getting comfortable with looking around for that special place. To help in an increasingly fast-paced market, technology-powered real estate brokerage, Redfin, has been on a mission to help people not only find the right house, but to help potential sellers get feedback on the price of their home from hundreds of potential buyers.
On the heels of launching a series of these “Price Whisperer”-like tools that aim to reduce the costs of the real estate search process for both homebuyers and sellers, Redfin is doing a little price whispering of its own. The company today announced that it has raised $50 million in late-stage growth capital from a handful of investors, beginning with Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price Associates.
The new round, which also includes contributions from the company's existing investors, like Greylock Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Vulcan Capital, Globespan Capital Partners and The Hillman Company, brings the company's total funding to just under $100 million. In addition, from what we've been hearing from sources, the round values its online brokerage and search business in the ballpark of $500 million.
With the new injection of capital, Redfin becomes yet another addition to the list of companies pursuing growth capital from backers outside the usual confines of the venture capital world. The investment is the second of its kind that T. Rowe Price, in particular has made in recent months, following its investment in MongoDB last month, for example.
The new capital will also likely help the Seattle-based company gear up for IPO, although that may not happen in the near future, according to the company. Having the help of late-stage firms like Tiger Global may allow the company to extend its runway as a private company and avoid going the route of an IPO.
Regardless, the new capital will allow Redfin to continue expanding its current marketshare, and go deeper, which according to the latest data, sits at around 3 and 4 percent in the company's hometown of Seattle. Redfin currently operates in 22 markets and will use its growth capital not only to expand its marketshare within these cities, but broaden its scope within the U.S.
While it nominally competes with the likes of Trulia and Zillow, the company has aimed to differentiate itself by becoming more of a search and brokerage service, rather than the Kayak-style approach (of becoming a lead generation funnel) of some of its competitors.
Redfin, in turn, offers access to live agents in an effort to help control and optimize customer satisfaction. The company claims that it's able to save homebuyers an average of $7,500 by giving homebuyers access to tools that help reduce the buy-side real estate fees usually incurred at closing. It's done that through a handful of product launches over the last year, including tools that help those selling their homes get a better feel for market prices and those that allow buyers to get a better understanding of the landscape and when they're about to step into a bidding war.
For more, find Redfin at home here and check out TechCrunch's in depth coverage to follow.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/IQEdyqJGVCI/
Acer Announces TravelMate P645 Ultrabook for $949
via Tech http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/mashable/tech/~3/5n6857FpNpQ/
The phone with two faces is shipping in time to impress nerds at your holiday party
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/CC_tPrGISUw/
Daily Roundup: PlayStation 4 test drive, Moto G unveiled, Jawbone Up24 and more!
via Engadget RSS Feed http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/z9Brs5lcjHE/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)