If you were in the business in the early- to mid-aught decade, you probably saw a demo of vaporware technology that would let the consumer click on a thing in a video (it was always an orangey pink sweater worn by Rachel from Friends) and see how and where you could buy it. There it [...]
Archive for February, 2011
Start-Up Watch COD: With Hyperspots, Rachel’s sweater is finally clickable!
Posted by Jim Nichols on February 28th, 2011at 12:00 am
The Marketers Ball Brings Dave Navarro to ad:tech
Posted by Steve Hall on February 25th, 2011at 9:43 am
And they're off as they say. Well, that's what they say that in horse racing. Not so much when it comes to parties at ad conferences. But, hey, that's the first thing that came to mind as we gear up for ad:tech San Francisco and all the parties that come with it.
First on the schedule is a new one for ad:tech. This one's called The Marketers Ball and it comes to us from the organizers of The Affiliate Ball which as last held during Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas in January. It was an enormous event with over 2,000 in attendance.
The organizers promise legendary rock icon Dave Navarro will be in the house along with DJ Scribble offering up an interesting mashup of rock and hip hop. And Ice Cube may make an appearance as well. The event will be held at 1015 Folsom, a venue capable of hosting more than 2,000. Last year, Clickbooth held their party at 1015. The party will occur April 12 and begin at 9PM.
Start-Up Watch COD: OneScreen is working to bring the video ecosystem togetha
Posted by Jim Nichols on February 25th, 2011at 12:01 am
Sometimes it seems like video is everywhere. But it isn’t. And the widely touted democratization of video content means lots more creative people can make a killing on ad supported content. It’s not so simple. And sometimes people tout the dramatic increase in the amount of premium video content as an indication that brands can [...]
Start-Up Watch COD: Xtranormal and the text to vid phenomenon
Posted by Jim Nichols on February 24th, 2011at 12:00 am
If you are alive, I would imagine you have seen an Xtranormal flick over the past year -- the iPhone 4 one was quite popular, as is Digital Ninja. (Both appear below.) But there are thousands of others, and I am certain we will be seeing even more of them over the months ahead.
Xtranormal is a Montreal-based company [...]
Start-Up Watch COD: Order up! Village Vines offers a different take on group couponing
Posted by Jim Nichols on February 21st, 2011at 12:00 am
When I first read the concept for Village Vines, I was intrigued because they seem to have a distinctive spin on the mega hot group couponing trend. It's different in part because it's vertical -- delivering offers focused on fine dining restaurants. Foodies can join the site and get daily offers from some of the [...]
Start-Up Watch COD: Napkin Labs brings people together to help give you big ideas
Posted by Jim Nichols on February 18th, 2011at 12:00 am
Over the last couple years, the idea of corporations using a larger community of thinkers to generate innovations has gotten plenty of ink. I think the tipping point was when Procter and Gamble unveiled its strategy of working with everyone from consumers to suppliers to generate better products. It's a brilliant notion -- it just [...]
Start-Up Watch COD: Lifesta and the Groupon “Aftermarket”
Posted by Jim Nichols on February 17th, 2011at 12:01 am
Anyone who gets even the smallest thrill out of shopping is probably familiar with buyer’s remorse: the notion that you can regret purchases after the fact. For me, it happens when I read about a book, rush to Amazon, and then later receive it and wonder, “What made me think that I would sustain enough [...]
Startup Spotlight
Posted by Daisy Whitney on February 16th, 2011at 1:49 pm
Marketers are constantly taking meetings with startup companies promising some new, cool, whiz-bang technology that will improve their digital marketing efforts. It can be overwhelming, to say the least, to wade through the multitude of new entrants peddling the next great bar code scanning technology, or location tagging service, or real-time analytics engine.
That’s why we’re [...]
