Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

The GOOG fuel remains stubbornly 99% pure–online AdWords and AdSense–as the Googleplex has been ubable to extend the Google magic profitably offline. What about mobile? Is Eric Schmidt’s grand mobile ambition destined to fade away just as his dreams of personalized, GPS fueled, in-car radio “targeted” ads have?

(SEE: Google CEO In-Car Radio Ad Vision Fading)

Moreover, will a “seismic” consumer shift to smartphones provoke a reciprocal marketer “wave of change” towards mobile advertising? The Internet “titans” are gearing up for such a projected user and advertiser bonanza, according to views presented yesterday at the OMMA Mobile conference in New York City.

Google has been preaching that an “open” mobile world is the future of wireless. Nevertheless, while competitive peers Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL took to the open stage in midtown Manhattan, not a sole Googler showed up from the NYC Googleplex to join in an open wireless OMMA conversation. No surprise, the Googler in Chief’s feel good PR slogans rarely match what the (once) $200 billion market cap corporation does in the for-profit field, Android included.

The AOL spokesperson offered the most refreshing, real world “big guys” assessment yesterday of the mobile opportunity, circa today: Don’t expect any game-changing, exotic breakthroughs in the coming months, Jason Gruber indicated. While the mobile opportunity is not as “sexy” as it is made out ot be, it is nevertheless very real, he underscored.

“The reach is not there” now, though, Gruber said, noting that 35 million daily mobile Web users in the U.S. is not sufficient “scale.” Will hoped for increases in 3G handset penetration seal the mobile advertising deal? Not necessarily.

Speaking on the ”giant killers” panel, Barry Chu, of whilte label mobile search provider Medio Systems, shared that the futures of each of the entrepreneurial mobile ventures represented is dependent upon projected mobile “hockey stick” growth manifesting by no later than next year.

An eventual consumer uptake in mobile Web use will not immediately translate into advertising success, however. The Weather Channel sells integrated, cross-platform media buys, but is challenged by a lack of mobile-centric measurements, Louis Gump conveyed.

Gump made a personal plea for the industry to move “beyond the click” as a basis for valuing the worth of mobile advertising campaigns. Gump is optimistic that mobile marketers will be shown value through:

Raising awareness,
Increasing message association,
Enhancing brand favorability,
Building purchase consideration.

What about CPMs? I asked. The industry has not standardized around anything, including rate cards.

In preparing for the OMMA Mobile conference, Media Post’s Steve Smith underscored that he sought to address “head-on” the “questions and myths that continue to retard mobile marketing growth”:

Is there really not enough scale here?
Are CPMs really outlandish?
Is it really just a youth medium?
Is it just too hard to put together a mobile campaign and navigate the technology?

Unfortunately for the immediate future of the mobile industry, all of Smith’s supposed myths were upheld, intelligently, as real-world obstacles for the near term.

ALSO:  Google Killer Cuill? Ex-Googler Startups Pose NO Threat: FriendFeed, Howcast, Zillow and Why Silicon Alley VCs Should Do Blogging Due Diligence, Too and NYC Braces for Subway Cell Phone Rage: 5 million Yakkers Daily

PLUS: Google Apps Meets Les Miserables: Enterprise IT Team DREAMS Big and Yahoo: Beware Google AND Embrace Microsoft! and Google Execs Silent On NYC Print, Radio, TV Promises 

MORE: How Web 2.0 Meetups Displaced the New York Software Industry and Yahoos Rally: Beware Sticky Peanut Butter Tales

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

The municpal wireless “business” is in a state of perpetual flux. 

I am tasked with opinining on the “REVOLUTION,” or NOT, in local advertising at the Kesley Interactive Local Media Conference, kicking-off post Thanskgiving in  Los Angeles, as a panelist on the closing “big thinkers” panel.

AnchorFree, the self-proclaimed creator of the “world’s largest Hotspot media network,” is a contender for “revolutionary” local honors, I noted earlier in the week.

AnchorFree helps display ads to hotspot locations across the country, framing wi-fi user sessions with good, old fashioned banner ads. AnchorFree creatively positions their standard looking banner ad product as a “AnchorFree Peristent Digital Browser Billboard.”

Web pages that a Hotspot user views showcases the ever-present, AnchorFree Persistent Digital Browser Billboard. With guaranteed top-of-browser placement on each and every page, this premium advertising space gives your message “top-of-mind” presence during each user’s Hotspot session. (And yes, we’ve even made the Persistent Digital Browser Billboard user-friendly, giving Wi-Fi users the opportunity to close the Banner with each page view.)

As the AnchorFree graphic illustrates, though, wi-fi users undoubtedly perceive the AnchorFree banner ads simply as tried and true banner ads overlaying the user experience.

AnchorFree nevertheless positions its service as must-go-to digital billboard infrastructure for old-school, incumbent, offline (big) billboard companies, such as CBS Outdoor Billboards and Displays. AnchorFree co-founder and CEO David Gorodyansky wants AnchorFree to help CBS go digital.

When Gorodyansky told me Tuesday that part of the AnchorFree value propostion, and business model, is to help bring CBS Outdoor and ClearChannel into the world of World Wide Web banners cum billboards, I questionned the interest of CBS and ClearChannel partnering with AnchorFree, when they would be best served by creating their own digital “billboard” business.

Two days later, CBS did indeed unveil its intention to “enhance the assets of CBS Outdoor with new technologies,” such as free wireless internet access, similar to the the AnchorFree model, announcing “CBS Outdoor Billboards and Displays Wired To Create a Massive, Free Wi-Fi HotZone Covering Times Square to Central Park South.”

Did AnchorFree ”inspire” CBS?

CBS says its “CBS Mobile Zone” ad-supported welcome page will showcase hyperlocal information and local businesses are offered free routers to be part of the CBS initiaive. Similarly, AnchorFree touts its “Doorway Page” seen at the beginning of each wi-fi hotspot user’s session and promos “free hotspot routers!” to spur local businesses to join the AnchorFree network.

Publicly traded CBS Corporation, however, has some disruptive ideas of its own, as it edges in on venture-backed startup AnchorFree’s “hotspot media network.” The “light up” midtown Manhattan project is part of a 6-month pilot program with the New York subway system to “test the potential communications capabilities of wi-fi technology.”

CBS Outdoor Billboards is committed to “turning out outdoor assets into next-generation interactive platforms” and seeks to “apply wi-fi capabilities across its outdoor properties globally.”

New York, New York, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

CBS is patnering with many Web and technology companies in its flagship Manhattan “CBS Mobile Zone”–Tropos, BIG, Fon, Veoh, Aptilo–but, apparently, not AnchorFree.

Once a local revolution is started, everyone is welcome to join in, even for their own (CBS) account! 

ALSO: MerchantCircle CEO Aims To Disrupt Local Advertising $39 billion Spend: INTERVIEW AND Stepan Pachikov: EverNote Web 2.0 Perfect Mobile Storm To Hit in 2008, INTERVIEW

PLUS: Google’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: AdWords Inflation and PayPerPost Warns U.S. Congress of Google Monopoly: Barack Obama to the Rescue?

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

The future of all varieties of local search will be analyzed, debated and predicted over three days of The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media Conference set for Los Angeles, post-Thanksgiving holiday.

I am a five year, multidisciplinary veteran of the Kelsey local intensives: From academic analyst, to startup entrepreneur, to professional blogger, I have experienced the annual event for interactive local media execs and local search practitioners from all angles and always look forward to the high-level local pow-wows.

This year, I have the pleasure of joining the Kelsey Group analysts on stage to wrap up the three-day local meetup in helping evaluate if we are in the midst of a local revolution, or an evolution.

Local media play AnchorFree, for one, would undoubtedly vote for local revolution, thanks to its ”hotspot media network.”

I met AnchorFree co-founder and CEO David Gorodyansky, and team, at the Ad-Tech conference in New York City earlier this month when the Silicon Valley based startup hosted a Silicon Alley Happy Hour. While many Ad-Tech exhibitors laid claim to the latest and greatest ad network innovations, the AnchorFree value proposition is indeed compelling:

The largest Hotspot media network, representing more than 10,000 Hotspot locations, generating more than 400 million page views through five million user sessions per month. The location-based ad network is a new marketing channel for brand and direct response marketers to deliver interactive, timely and targeted advertisements to laptop and mobile device users when they are away from the home or office.

What is so “revolutionary” about the AnchorFree ad network? In a telephone interview this week, Gorodyansky proudly told me his company can target local ads better than Google and Yahoo! As the leading search engines rely on IP addresses for ad serving precision, both Google and Yahoo work under 30% to 50% margins of error, Gorodyansky indicated.

AnchorFree serves ads “pinpointed to street level location,” Gorodyansky told me. AnchorFree may even be able to target Yahoo local ads better than Yahoo itself; AnchorFree has an ad sales and delivery partnership with the number two search engine:

Advertisers are guaranteed 100% accurate location-based targeting, as AnchorFree’s geo-targeting capabilities are based on the access location of the consumer, and not on the less reliable ISP data.

The AnchorFree sales pitch: “We connect advertisers with millions of consumers in a captive, persistent manner that is highly measurable and geo-targeted to users’ exact locations. Any business, from coffee shops and restaurants to hotels, airports and malls, can leverage the AnchorFree network to offer their patrons free Internet access while generating new revenues with no financial investments required.”

AnchorFree aims to build a nationwide broadband advertising network providing 1-to-1 connections with attentive consumers, Gorodyansky told me. Whats more, the out-of-home laptop and wireless device users that engage with AnchorFree’s free-to-the-consumer, ad-supported hotspot network, are highly desirable to brand and direct marketers, Gorodyansky indicated.

Brands currently running across the AnchorFree network include American Express, AirTran, Circuit City, Clorox, Ford…AnchorFree commands CPMs of about $12.50.

While Gorodyyansky hails the local advertising appeal of its service for the media business, AnchorFree also sees its mission as revolutionary for the world at large:

The company enables a grass roots movement of thousands of locations around the world that come together into the largest public, ad-supported Wi-Fi community.

AnchorFree’s hotspot concept does sound “hot.” The hot local space nevertheless has lots of companies vying for “revolutionary” honors.

Dozens of other prospectively “hot” local plays are unbdoubtedly gearing up to make their own best advertising and/or technology cases to the hundreds of local decision makers set to convene in Los Angeles from November 28 to 30!

SEE YOU THERE? BE SURE TO STAY TO THE VERY END! CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

MORE INSIDER CHATTER CEO INTERVIEWS: MerchantCircle CEO Aims To Disrupt Local Advertising $39 billion Spend: INTERVIEW AND Stepan Pachikov: EverNote Web 2.0 Perfect Mobile Storm To Hit in 2008, INTERVIEW

UPDATE:  CBS To AnchorFree WiFi: WE Own The Ad Billboard, Online AND Off

On the heels of Google’s big $10 million mobile Android development push, Yahoo is going mobile with Asia Pacific operators in a big way.Who else has BIG mobile ambitions? Stepan Pachikov’s EverNote, much more than a “a complete note management solution.”

Mobile information overload? NO PROBLEM, You will soon be able to “outsource your brain,” thanks to EverNote, Phil Libin, CEO, announced to me.

Libin recently took over the helm of EverNote to lead the impending mass consumer launch of the high-technology “electronic ink” startup with a storied history. I heard the EverNote story, first hand, from the man who (metaphorically) wrote it, Stepan Pachikov, Ph.D. and Chief Product Architect, over lunch in New York City, a long (and enjoyable) lunch.

When I began our conversation by asking Dr. Pachikov for a two sentence overview of the goal of EverNote, the USSR-born scientist told me it is important to start at the beginning, the very beginning: Russia circa 1984. Among his many technological accomplishments, Pachikov is particularly proud of founding the first computer club in his native Russia, in collaboration with Gary Kasparov.

Pachikov has also had considerable financial success, founding, building and subsequently selling handwriting-recognition software companies and technology to large corporations.

Pachikov founded ParaGraph in 1989 with a $150,000 investment that led to a 400 times cash-to-cash return by a SGI acquisition in 1997 and he founded ParaScript in 1996, which now powers address recognition for all USPS mail. Pachikov’s technology trackrecord in the 1990’s includes: the first cursive handwriting for scanned images and natural handwriting recognition for digital ink and leadership in 3D VR and VRML. Pachikov developed three recognition technologies available today on the market: Calligrapher, Microsoft Transcriber and EverNote riteScript. 

At EverNote, the Pachikov mission is now more than a technological or commerical one: He (really) wants to change the world, by providing a universal ”extension of human memory.” Pachikov is bolstered in his vision by an Evernote R & D team “with over 135 years combined experience.”

When Pachikov says he is not in it for the money, it rings true. CEO Libin, however, has been brought in to focus on the big money potential that a world-changing application ought to yield. The goal of EverNote is to profitably “offer an essential software service that will help millions of people manage their daily information overload.”

Since the inital $6 million EverNote venture funding 18 months ago, EverNote has achieved many milestones:

Released two major versions of EverNote desktop for Windows,
Captured over 60,000 active users,
Developed beta versions of smart phone and Web platforms,
Signed major distribution partnerships with Hitachi, Lexar, Fujitsu, Wacom, Toshiba, SanDisk…

EverNote is now poised to unleash a Web 2.0 mass consumer perfect storm to ring in the New Year: Proprietary technology, scalable traction and a business model.

EverNote is set to launch its mass-market service in the first quarter of 2008 by adding mobile, Web and Macintosh clients to its existing Windows software, Libin told me. The aim is to make EverNote more accessible and appealing to a large audience; Two million active users by 2009 is the plan.

Libin is driving a two-prong growth strategy: Continuation of distribution via traditional partnerships and viral marketing with social networking platforms such as Facebook and Google’s Social APIs. Monetization will also take multiple forms: Premium subscription offerings and advertising-supported free services.

EverNote is up against formidable competition in the broadly defined “note-taking”category, from the likes of Microsoft OneNote and Google Notebook, but is ready for the challenge.

Pachikov told me EverNote addresses broader human needs than single platform, (not so) simple “note-taking” applications: “The big players make complicated systems that require time and planning to use effectively.”

Libin hails a three-prong EverNote competitive value proposiiton:

1) Focus on instant, effortless capturing,
2) Unmatched recognition and search quality,
3) Access-from-anywhere service model.

EverNote wants to turn each mobile phone into a “universal capturing device.” But, EverNote users won’t view their cell phones as independent platforms for “small” applications, rather as integrated parts of their overall information lifestyle, Pachikov underscored.

EverNote is a liftetime information utility that lets users capture, recall and share memories. Since EverNote works from any mobile device or PC, the long-term value proposition transcends the short expected lifteime of a typical phone; EverNote service lets users capture and access their memories from anywhere and ties mobile devices with desktop and Web clients, thereby increasing the value of each device. Consumers know that their current mobile device is only a temporary part of their lives, but the EverNote service will be forever. EverNote servers continuously process all data captured through recognition engines, which understand and serach through information stored in many types of media files. 

In other EverNote words, as Pachikov demoed for me, the next time I am having dinner at a bistro in Paris and enjoying a good bottle of French wine, all I have to do is snap a picture of the wine bottle label with my camera phone, and that “memory” instantly becomes part of the EverNote service.

EverNote then becomes my “memory extension” by enabling me, years later, to quickly recall that label by searching for any word in the photo, the geographical location of the bistro, the approximate time, or by a myriad of other attributes, Pachikov illustrated.

I asked Pachikov if he believed ”outsourcing” brains and/or memories to outsourced third party servers would necessarily be a good thing. After all, personal privacy and company longevity concerns are but two issues that immediately come to mind.

Founder Pachikov’s “zeal” for making mobile devices an extension of human memory can, nevertheless, not be contained.

CEO Libin assured me EverNote has got its privacy bases covered, so people around the world can safely and securely “Capture what they like and recall it when they need it,” thanks to EverNote, coming to the Web and mobile devices soon.

MORE EXCLUSIVE INSIDER CHATTER CEO INTERVIEWS: MerchantCircle CEO Aims To Disrupt Local Advertising $39 billion Spend: INTERVIEW and Reid Hoffman On How LinkedIn Beats Facebook for Business, INTERVIEW and AnchorFree CEO: Hotspot Local Ad Network Beats Google, Yahoo, INTERVIEW

ALSO: Google Sends Microsoft $10 million Press Release: Bye, Bye Windows Mobile!

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google is at its shrewd, penny-pinnching ways again! Just as one of the richest corporations on the planet believes it can corner the online local ad market by doling out $10 in slave wages to Googley “sales reps,” the Googleplex is now plotting a $10 million coup to usurp Microsoft’s hard-earned claim to mobile smartphone leadership.

Microsft CEO Steve Ballmer’s retort to Mountain View’s announcement of the Android project last week: “Right now they have a press release, we have many, many millions of customers, great software, many hardware devices…”

How many? Windows Mobile is on 150 different handsets, available from more than 100 different mobile operators, with a projected license of 20 million Windows Mobile handsets in2007, according to Ballmer.

BUT, if the Google “Open Handset Alliance” is but a “press release,” it is a $10 million one, as of today.

The Google speed machine believes its “$10 milion Android developer challenge” is all it needs to turn its vision for “the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices” into a reality, quickly.

With so many brilliant minds striving to design engaging, innovative applications, mobile users around the world (3 billion and counting) can expect phones equipped with dynamic and unprecedented applications very soon.

Cash prizes of $25,000 to $275,000 are earmarked for 70 “cool apps” of the Android variety. Google is undoubedtly counting on hundreds and thousands of entries, i.e., developers around the world will be eagerly building out Google’s Android.

Here are Google’s Android development specs for the “cool apps” it expects:

Social Networking
Media Consumption
Productivity and Collaboration
Gaming
News and Information
User Interfaces
Mashups
Location-Based Services….

On your mark, get set, GOOGLE!

MORE MOBILE NEWS: Stepan Pachikov: EverNote Web 2.0 Perfect Mobile Storm To Hit in 2008, INTERVIEW

ALSO: MerchantCircle CEO Aims To Disrupt Local Advertising $39 billion Spend: INTERVIEW and Sexist LinkedIn: Hillary Clinton and Gender Politics

PLUS: Google’s $10 Local Search Pipe Dream: Slave Wages to Squeeze Yellow Pages

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google IS itching for its brand new shiny GPhone to hit the shelves, SOON!

In announcing “Docs on the go,” Google reluctantly advises of its availability for iPhone, Blackberry, OR Windows Mobile devices, but NO BIGGER AND BADDER GPHONE, YET.

Google is surely prepping for its Googley Mobile OS coming out party though, disclaiming:

It was a real challenge coming up with useful views, especially of spreadsheets, that would work on the inherently limited screen size and the (um, how to say it nicely) often finicky mobile browsers.

YES! Google is undoubtedly working around the mobile clock to make sure we do not have to suffer much longer with existing ”finicky” mobile browsers!

Perhaps we will even have word tomorrow, when the top Googlers report to Wall Street on the latest Google shock and awe.

ALSO: Hey, Microsoft: Send CMP Media the HealthVault Memo (c/o Web 2.0 Summit) and Google Q3 Planetary Gains: Every Country AND The Cloud

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN