Entries Tagged 'Mike Spataro' ↓

It’s always nice to have your company recognized by industry peers. More importantly, it further validates the business path we’ve chosen to take here at Visible Technologies. Being named this week by AlwaysOn as one of The OnMedia Top 100 companies of the year really underscores the great work by our management team and our TruCast, TruView and 1st Query product teams. Some of the previous winners have gone on to accomplish great things and we hope to keep that trend going in 2008 and beyond.

More important than winning awards though is the undeniable momentum around social media within the advertising community. Here are just a few of the interesting items discussed during the opening sessions of this week’s event:

• social media was labeled as the #1 area that will impact the media industry in 2008, even ahead of online advertising. And this was from a survey of executives in the advertising and media industry.
• the majority of advertising people surveyed say they still don’t know how to make social media fit within their media plans. No real surprise there. Many of them are still struggling with the whole concept of social media because they are looking at the business from strictly an old school advertising mindset.
• the Web now has about 30% of U.S. consumers eyeballs, but only 6.8% of ad spending. Expect that gap to continue for several more years before advertisers really catch up.
• Most Gen Y’ers are consuming more than 60% of content produced by someone they already know. This is obviously another impact of the social networks they belong to.

There are still plenty of sessions underway today and tomorrow that are being blogged and can be accessed via live chat and webcasts in case you want to drop in and check some of them out.

Mike Spataro

No matter how many times a social media event is planned in Boston these days there never seems to be enough meeting space to hold everyone who has jumped on the bandwagon. It was a standing room only crowd of well over 100 people at this week’s MITX panel discussion on the opportunities and implications for social media marketers. Ironically, the new media event was staged at very old and historic Faneuil Hall and featured a panel of experts from Facebook, MySpace, Eons, IBM and StudioCom. Larry Weber of the W2 Group served as moderator.

Jeff Taylor, founder of the baby boomer social network Eons, offered his usual variety of interesting insights. Taylor is more qualified than most when it comes to the Web having successfully launched both a Web 1.0 company - Monster - and now is trying to catch lighting in a bottle twice with Eons. Taylor noted that social media’s ability to be “an inch wide and a mile deep” presents real challenges for traditional news organizations that operate just the opposite and must appeal to a broader audience to be successful.

Facebook VP Tom Arrix called social media the biggest communications trend of the last 10 years and encouraged brands to pay closer attention to what’s being said about them in online communities or risk losing a major competitive advantage. “They are a gold mine of information.” Arrix also had an interesting observation that social media has actually helped people return to a time when previous generations used to really keep in touch with friends and family on a more personal level. That’s very true.

Suzanne Skop of MySpace said her company is extremely focused on providing original programming these days and now has 72 million active MySpace users. Not bad for a social network barely talked about any more. There was also a lively exchange between panelists and audience members on if and how content creators should be recognized and rewarded for providing valuable information that is being capitalized on by platform providers and others.

Mike Spataro

Maybe adults shouldn’t be allowed to have new media technology. In what could be a first, the mayor of Detroit has allegedly been caught lying via text messages uncovered by the Detroit Free Press. The implications could be enormous. It’ll be interesting to find out how the newspaper got its hands on the mayor’s text messages.

Mike Spataro

I had the pleasure of being part of a VC panel discussion this week on the topic of “Seeding Your Web 2.0 Company, hosted by the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX), and K&L Gates.

Joining me on the panel were two VC partners, Austin Westerling from Charles River Ventures and Sim Simeonov from Polaris Ventures, and also Christian Heidelberger, CEO, Nexaweb, whose company also recently went through the VC fundraising process like we here at VT did last year.

The main topic of interest and questions from the audience of about 75 entrepreneurs was how to attract angel and VC funding in this Web 2.0 environment, and if it helps or hurts to be labeled a Web 2.0 company in this new era of Internet hype. Good luck trying to get anyone to agree on what Web 2.0 even means. The advice from the panel was simple, direct and on target:

• focus on your product or service and the market problem you’re trying to solve and don’t get hung up on the money or if your idea is considered Web 2.0;
• there isn’t a big difference on whether to start with an angel investor or a VC firm as long as there is a commitment from the investor to add value to the business;
• if you want to approach a VC firm you better know someone for an introduction because you aren’t getting in the door;
• get used to rejection because it comes with the process, but don’t be discouraged if you really believe your idea is a winner;
• once you get to present to a VC firm you have about 10 minutes and 10 slides to impress the partners or they’ll lose interest;
• you don’t need a detailed business plan to seek early investment funding, but you do need to articulate when your business will be cash positive.

The good news is there is plenty of VC money still being raised for funding new companies. In fact, Charles River has launched a “Quick Start Seed Loan” program that can deliver funding for hot ideas in a matter of a day or two.

If you’re in the Greater Boston area, the MITX events are definitely worth a look. There is also another good one this week called, “Social Media: the Opportunities and Implications for Marketers.”

Mike Spataro

Mark Glaser has an excellent piece on how mainstream media organizations are grappling with the issues of consumer participation. Interestingly many sites are reporting significant increases in the number of consumers who are joining the conversation. The debate over moderation and anonymous posting remains a challenge for many news sites. It wasn’t long ago that MSM outlets were debating whether or not they even wanted to include comments, so the industry has come a long way in a very short period of time.