Moses Kagan's Aurora Borealis

Am in New York for a few days, before heading to LA for meetings, so posting will be light.

One quick note that I'll explore further: I'm in the process of developing a criteria list for new investments / company ideas. Would love for anyone who reads this to weigh in with criteria they have previously found helpful. Thoughts?

We're in the process of looking at doing some TV advertising for a direct to consumer mobile proposition. We've therefore been auditioning media buyers and creative agencies, trying to find partners who have experience in the space.

It's hard. Whether because the data is considered extremely proprietary or because the TV world is not steeped in the kind of data measurement and analysis that goes on online, we haven't found suppliers who have hardcore understanding of direct response advertising of mobile applications.

There is an absolutely yawning hole in the market for an agency which combines media buying with direct tv creative chops to become the one-stop shop for customers looking to sell through tv.

Just met with Ben Turner-Brown, Sales Director at Pitch, the recently (November 2006) launched, London-based, mobile social network. By advertising on MTV and other youth-oriented TV channels, Pitch has managed to get 40k users to opt in to its service. Pitch allows all of the usual social networking functionality, plus access to a large catalogue of mobile content, including ringtones, wallpapers, etc. Users are monetised via sale of their attention to brands in the form of advertising in various formats. [Note - this theme of the value of attention is one to which I'll return later.]

So far, Pitch is serving 700k impressions per month to the 40k users - meaning 17.5 impressions per user per month. Since Pitch messages all users roughly 3x per week (12x per month) and counts those as impressions, the actual number of 'active impressions' (where the user actually goes to Pitch) is only 5.5 impressions per user per month.

The questions, as always, comes down to how many of those 40k users are generating 'active impressions' - and how valuable those active users are to brands.

Still, it's a great start, one that bodes well for the mobile content space.

Labels: advertising, content, mobile, social-networking

To Kettners on Romilly Street in Soho with Rob Willis of 4th Republic to discuss opportunities in the mobile content and mobile direct to consumer areas.

Rob is very clued-up on opportunities to syndicate premium content to publishers on operator portals around the world. 4th Republic is selling white-labeled content in more than 20 countries. They're also doing some experiments with D2C business models promoted via a variety of channels.

We're considering using Guerilla, 4th Republic's parent company, to make some TV ads for our direct to consumer proposition. Their experience in the area sets them apart from the competition and we're excited about the opportunity to work together.

Labels: 4th Republic, mobile, tv

As a working practitioner in the mobile / internet space, managing a P&L and also doing consulting work on deals, my clients' confidentiality is obviously key.

So, I will be limiting my mention of names, etc. to those situations where the information is already public or the client is happy for me to blog on it.

Labels: confidentiality

I was part of the team that sold Friends Reunited to ITV in December 2005 - to that point, the largest sale of a privately held internet company in UK by value. It was my first big deal and one that I think ought to serve as a template for how deals are done.

The FR team actually cared about the brand and the people who helped them turn it into a big business. Unlike most sellers I've worked with, they passed on the highest bid for their company, in order to ensure that it went to ITV, the right home.

We'll look at how that deal turned out another day. For now, I just want to pass along how much admiration I have for Michael Murphy, Tim Ward and Rob Mogford and their team.

Just read this article about Yahoo launching a mobile advertising network: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/technology/27mobile.html

Call me skeptical, but I’m not a buyer of Yahoo traffic for the direct-to-consumer mobile video service we've set up for a client.

The quality of the traffic we’ve seen from every mobile advertising platform we’ve trialled in the UK, with the exception of Google search, has been awful. Over the last three months, we’ve run banner ad campaigns across several of the more established mobile advertising networks. The conversion rate on the traffic has been around 0%, with the basket size coming in at around 0 items.

For now, the strategy is: bid up those Google keywords.

Labels: advertising, Google, mobile, Yahoo

Welcome to my new blog 'Glasses', where I'll regularly share my thoughts / observations / perspectives on the London internet and mobile media scene. Through this blog, I hope to articulate, refine and (eventually) promote my ideas about the threats and opportunities digital media poses to traditional media businesses and the investors who capitalise them.

This wouldn't be a blog if I didn't humbly request your participation, so please chime in with criticisms, complaints, objections, etc.

Let's get started, shall we?