torsdag 25. februar 2010
HyTrust trekker i $ 10.5m å virtualisere bedriftssystemer
HyTrust, leverandør av verktøy som gir systemadministratorer nærmere tilsyn, sikkerhet og arbeidsflyt i sine cloud computing miljø, har brakt inn $ 10.5 millioner i en ny runde med finansiering. Basert i Mountain View, Calif, selskapet sier at det vil bruke de nye pengene til å fortsette produktutvikling og biff opp sin salgs-og markedsføringsstrategier. Den siste runden av kapitalen kom fra Granite Ventures, Trident Capital, Epic Ventures og Cisco Systems. Dette er den andre investeringer runde Cisco har deltatt i denne uken, bidrar til $ 5.5 million oppdratt av API ledelsen oppstart Mashery går. HyTrust har reist USD 16 millioner til dags dato. Selskapene: Cisco Systems, Epic Ventures, Granite Ventures, HyTrust, Trident Capital
Virgin Media to roll out 100Mbps fiber broadband to 12.6 million UK homes
Virgin Media announced today that it would begin rolling out 100 megabit per second fiber broadband to 12.6 million homes in the UK.
The 100Mbps connection would be significantly faster than the average broadband connection in the UK, which sits around 4.1Mbps. Virgin’s current 3.8 million fiber broadband customers — who currently have access to speeds between 10Mbps and 50Mbps — will also be able to upgrade to the faster 100Mbps connection by 2011.
Fiber is gaining a reputation as the future of broadband access to the home. Verizon’s FiOS fiber service clocked 2.9 million subscribers in the U.S. as of January 2010, and Google recently announced its own plans to build a 1 gigabit per second fiber network in the U.S. that would serve between 50,000 and 500,000 homes. Virgin’s network is ten times slower, but far more ambitious in terms of users. Virgin competitor British Telecom also recently unveiled its own fiber broadband service, BT Infinity, that offers speeds of up to 40Mbps.
Praising its fiber network, Virgin Media CEO said:
There is nothing we can’t do with our fibre optic cable network, and the forthcoming launch of our flagship 100Mb service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience.
We want to keep giving our customers the very best broadband available, by investing in technological innovation and transforming the experience they have when they are online. The launch of this service will be a historic moment and will mean the UK will be comparable to other leading broadband nations.
Virgin is testing an even faster 200Mbps fiber service, which it plans to roll out officially sometime in 2012.
Tags: broadband, fiber
Companies: Virgin Media
The 100Mbps connection would be significantly faster than the average broadband connection in the UK, which sits around 4.1Mbps. Virgin’s current 3.8 million fiber broadband customers — who currently have access to speeds between 10Mbps and 50Mbps — will also be able to upgrade to the faster 100Mbps connection by 2011.
Fiber is gaining a reputation as the future of broadband access to the home. Verizon’s FiOS fiber service clocked 2.9 million subscribers in the U.S. as of January 2010, and Google recently announced its own plans to build a 1 gigabit per second fiber network in the U.S. that would serve between 50,000 and 500,000 homes. Virgin’s network is ten times slower, but far more ambitious in terms of users. Virgin competitor British Telecom also recently unveiled its own fiber broadband service, BT Infinity, that offers speeds of up to 40Mbps.
Praising its fiber network, Virgin Media CEO said:
There is nothing we can’t do with our fibre optic cable network, and the forthcoming launch of our flagship 100Mb service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience.
We want to keep giving our customers the very best broadband available, by investing in technological innovation and transforming the experience they have when they are online. The launch of this service will be a historic moment and will mean the UK will be comparable to other leading broadband nations.
Virgin is testing an even faster 200Mbps fiber service, which it plans to roll out officially sometime in 2012.
Tags: broadband, fiber
Companies: Virgin Media
Music Mastermind bags $4.9M for virtual music creation
Music Mastermind, a developer of music creation products and software, today announced it has secured a first round of funding for $4.9 million from undisclosed angel investors. The funding will be used to further product development and finalize release plans to the public.
Music Mastermind emerged this year at the Consumer Electronics Show and provided several sneak peaks of its music creation products. Combined with software, the company uses video game like musical tools to help users create and record various tracks through a virtual recording studio. The process could best be described as playing Guitar Hero but creating your own musical track.
A CES recap by the LA Timesdecribes how a user can start by adding vocals, which the software auto tunes, then mimick drum beats and, finally, choose a guitar or bass to fill out the track. The software combines and records the whole performance. A community aspect allows users to share and promote their tracks as well as let others add feedback.
Music Mastermind faces competition from popular games like Guitar Hero and Rockband and may fall short if users don’t have the desire to create their own original tracks. The company claims to be creating a new paradigm between video games and music, but one might think original music creators, like musicians and producers who might use the product, are a much different crowd than traditional video gamers.
The Calabasas, Calif. company was formed in 2008, has staff of 15 full-time technical and marketing employees and is planning on doubling its staff by mid-2010. Music Mastermind plans to release its first product at the end of this year.
Companies: Music Mastermind
Music Mastermind emerged this year at the Consumer Electronics Show and provided several sneak peaks of its music creation products. Combined with software, the company uses video game like musical tools to help users create and record various tracks through a virtual recording studio. The process could best be described as playing Guitar Hero but creating your own musical track.
A CES recap by the LA Timesdecribes how a user can start by adding vocals, which the software auto tunes, then mimick drum beats and, finally, choose a guitar or bass to fill out the track. The software combines and records the whole performance. A community aspect allows users to share and promote their tracks as well as let others add feedback.
Music Mastermind faces competition from popular games like Guitar Hero and Rockband and may fall short if users don’t have the desire to create their own original tracks. The company claims to be creating a new paradigm between video games and music, but one might think original music creators, like musicians and producers who might use the product, are a much different crowd than traditional video gamers.
The Calabasas, Calif. company was formed in 2008, has staff of 15 full-time technical and marketing employees and is planning on doubling its staff by mid-2010. Music Mastermind plans to release its first product at the end of this year.
Companies: Music Mastermind
Cloudy skies ahead for Palm — warns of lower than expected revenue
It’s going to be a difficult year for Palm. The handset maker updated its guidance this morning to reflect lower than expected revenue for the third quarter and full fiscal year 2010. It expects third quarter revenue to be in the range of $285 and $310 million on a GAAP basis — about 30 percent less than $425.4 million analysts had been expecting (according to AllThingsDigital). Subsequently, Palm expects much lower fiscal year 2010 revenue than its initial forecast range of $1.6 to $1.8 billion.
Palm blames slow consumer adoption of its products for the poor numbers, which has led to lower than expected volume orders by carriers, as well as deferral of volume orders to later periods.
In a statement, CEO Jon Rubenstein had the following to say:
Palm webOS is recognized as a groundbreaking platform that enables one of the best smartphone experiences available today, and our work to evolve the platform and bring industry-leading technology to market continues. However, driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than we anticipated.
Our carrier partners remain committed, and we are working closely with them to increase awareness and drive sales of our differentiated Palm products.
Though Palm says its partners are committed, there has been buzz that Verizon is already considering dropping its Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones due to poor sales. The phones hit Verizon in late January, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for Palm that Verizon may be having second thoughts after only a month.
Like many, I was disappointed by both of Palm’s recent phones. Despite the nifty additions of more RAM in the Pre Plus, and Wi-Fi support on the Pixi Plus — the phones still screamed of being minor upgrades to last year’s hardware. When Palm announced the Pre at CES 2009, there was genuine excitement surrounding the product because it was the first recent smartphone to actually best the iPhone in many ways. But that same hardware doesn’t shine as brightly now when compared to recent Android phones like the Motorola Droid or Nexus One, or even the iPhone 3GS.
I’ve always thought that 2010 was going to be a crucial year for Palm. If the company can’t bounce back this year, it won’t be able to roll out much-needed new hardware to compete with its bigger competitors, and it will likely need to find a buyer.
At the time of this post, Palm’s stock sits at $7.00 — a significant step down from its $17.75 peak last September. The company will announce the full details of its Q3 2010 earnings in a conference call on March 18.
Tags: Palm Pixi Plus, Palm Pre Plus
Companies: Palm
Palm blames slow consumer adoption of its products for the poor numbers, which has led to lower than expected volume orders by carriers, as well as deferral of volume orders to later periods.
In a statement, CEO Jon Rubenstein had the following to say:
Palm webOS is recognized as a groundbreaking platform that enables one of the best smartphone experiences available today, and our work to evolve the platform and bring industry-leading technology to market continues. However, driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than we anticipated.
Our carrier partners remain committed, and we are working closely with them to increase awareness and drive sales of our differentiated Palm products.
Though Palm says its partners are committed, there has been buzz that Verizon is already considering dropping its Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones due to poor sales. The phones hit Verizon in late January, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for Palm that Verizon may be having second thoughts after only a month.
Like many, I was disappointed by both of Palm’s recent phones. Despite the nifty additions of more RAM in the Pre Plus, and Wi-Fi support on the Pixi Plus — the phones still screamed of being minor upgrades to last year’s hardware. When Palm announced the Pre at CES 2009, there was genuine excitement surrounding the product because it was the first recent smartphone to actually best the iPhone in many ways. But that same hardware doesn’t shine as brightly now when compared to recent Android phones like the Motorola Droid or Nexus One, or even the iPhone 3GS.
I’ve always thought that 2010 was going to be a crucial year for Palm. If the company can’t bounce back this year, it won’t be able to roll out much-needed new hardware to compete with its bigger competitors, and it will likely need to find a buyer.
At the time of this post, Palm’s stock sits at $7.00 — a significant step down from its $17.75 peak last September. The company will announce the full details of its Q3 2010 earnings in a conference call on March 18.
Tags: Palm Pixi Plus, Palm Pre Plus
Companies: Palm
New batch of GamesBeat@GDC speakers: Vanedge Capital, Raine Group, AdMob
Once again, we’d like to highlight more stellar speakers we lined up for our upcoming GamesBeat@GDC executive game conference. The event is set for March 10 in San Francisco at the Game Developers Conference in the Moscone Convention Center. Today we’re announcing the following speakers have been added to our lineup:
Paul Lee, managing general partner at Vanedge Capital Partners. Lee will speak on our opening panel on The Best Disruptive Game Investment Opportunities for 2010 and Beyond. Lee’s Vanedge is a venture capital fund that will focus on opportunities in the interactive digital media space. He is the former president of Electronic Arts and was responsible for the worldwide studio group, managing more than 6,000 employees and $1 billion in annual capital and operating expenses in development studios.
From 1987 – 1989 Lee worked at Chrysler Canada as an Investment Manager for the pension fund and health and welfare benefit plans. He joined Distinctive Software as a principal in 1989, a game developer that was by Electronic Arts in 1991. Lee currently serves as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, is a member of the Minister’s Steering Committee for the Vancouver International Financial Institutions Sector, and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Vancouver Board of Trade. He is Chair of the Board of Directors of DigiBC, a merger of New Media B.C. and WinBC. Lee is also Chair of the Board of Directors at D-Wave Systems, a company working to build the world’s first commercial quantum computer.
John Salter, partner at the Raine Group. Salter will also speak on the panel on game investments. He is responsible for Raine’s interactive and digital media practice. Prior to Raine, Salter was Global Head of Digital Media at UBS Investment Bank where he had worked for over eight years in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group in San Francisco. While at UBS, he worked on advisory and capital raising assignments for leading entertainment and digital companies including Activision Blizzard, Giant Interactive, Infogrames/Atari, Lionhead, Shanda Interactive, Square Enix and THQ, among others. Prior to UBS John worked in the Internet and New Media group at Volpe, Brown, Whelan & Co, a boutique investment bank based in San Francisco.
Aunkur Arya, Director of Business Development at AdMob. Arya will speak on our panel on a Sea of Mobile Devices. He is responsible for AdMob’s iPhone and Android publisher network in North America, with a focus on establishing new partnerships with developers. In this role, he works with the mobile app ecosystem to help developers leverage AdMob to create new revenue streams for their mobile business. Arya has spent the last 10 years creating, commercializing, and marketing innovative mobile and Internet products. Prior to AdMob, Aunkur managed strategic partnerships at July Systems (a mobile commerce platform provider) and partnered with operators and mobile game publishers to create new consumer-facing channels for selling mobile content. Previously, Aunkur has held positions at ComScore Networks and InfoSpace.
Here’s a review of our theme for the conference:
Disruption 2.0. We’ll focus on the next disruptions that will happen in the video game industry. In the past couple of years, social games with virtual goods business models have proved themselves and shaken up the status quo. The iPhone has become a hot platform, and Apple hopes to extend further into games with the iPad. Digital distribution and online games are growing. Will these trends gather more momentum and prove to be sustainable, or will new platforms and business models disrupt the disruptors?
The big game companies and brands are maneuvering into the market, even as successful startups are consolidating their gains and acquiring companies. Are console game makers poised to make a comeback as the recession ends? As growth returns to the industry in 2010, who will be poised to take market share and define the next-generation of games? Game companies that are doing the disrupting, adapting and growing will be speaking at the conference.
Who’s Got Game contest: Our deadline is fast-approaching for the contest for best game startup. We’ll close off applications for the contest at the end of the day, 5 pm Pacific time, on Friday, Feb. 26, so get your entry forms filled out. The top finalists will appear on stage at GamesBeat@GDC before a panel of expert judges. Those judges will select the winner.
For more conference info, check out our GamesBeat 2010 web site and our Facebook Group for GamesBeat@GDC. Our sponsors include the Georgia Department of Economic Development, PlaySpan, AdMob, and hi5.
Paul Lee, managing general partner at Vanedge Capital Partners. Lee will speak on our opening panel on The Best Disruptive Game Investment Opportunities for 2010 and Beyond. Lee’s Vanedge is a venture capital fund that will focus on opportunities in the interactive digital media space. He is the former president of Electronic Arts and was responsible for the worldwide studio group, managing more than 6,000 employees and $1 billion in annual capital and operating expenses in development studios.
From 1987 – 1989 Lee worked at Chrysler Canada as an Investment Manager for the pension fund and health and welfare benefit plans. He joined Distinctive Software as a principal in 1989, a game developer that was by Electronic Arts in 1991. Lee currently serves as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, is a member of the Minister’s Steering Committee for the Vancouver International Financial Institutions Sector, and currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Vancouver Board of Trade. He is Chair of the Board of Directors of DigiBC, a merger of New Media B.C. and WinBC. Lee is also Chair of the Board of Directors at D-Wave Systems, a company working to build the world’s first commercial quantum computer.
John Salter, partner at the Raine Group. Salter will also speak on the panel on game investments. He is responsible for Raine’s interactive and digital media practice. Prior to Raine, Salter was Global Head of Digital Media at UBS Investment Bank where he had worked for over eight years in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Group in San Francisco. While at UBS, he worked on advisory and capital raising assignments for leading entertainment and digital companies including Activision Blizzard, Giant Interactive, Infogrames/Atari, Lionhead, Shanda Interactive, Square Enix and THQ, among others. Prior to UBS John worked in the Internet and New Media group at Volpe, Brown, Whelan & Co, a boutique investment bank based in San Francisco.
Aunkur Arya, Director of Business Development at AdMob. Arya will speak on our panel on a Sea of Mobile Devices. He is responsible for AdMob’s iPhone and Android publisher network in North America, with a focus on establishing new partnerships with developers. In this role, he works with the mobile app ecosystem to help developers leverage AdMob to create new revenue streams for their mobile business. Arya has spent the last 10 years creating, commercializing, and marketing innovative mobile and Internet products. Prior to AdMob, Aunkur managed strategic partnerships at July Systems (a mobile commerce platform provider) and partnered with operators and mobile game publishers to create new consumer-facing channels for selling mobile content. Previously, Aunkur has held positions at ComScore Networks and InfoSpace.
Here’s a review of our theme for the conference:
Disruption 2.0. We’ll focus on the next disruptions that will happen in the video game industry. In the past couple of years, social games with virtual goods business models have proved themselves and shaken up the status quo. The iPhone has become a hot platform, and Apple hopes to extend further into games with the iPad. Digital distribution and online games are growing. Will these trends gather more momentum and prove to be sustainable, or will new platforms and business models disrupt the disruptors?
The big game companies and brands are maneuvering into the market, even as successful startups are consolidating their gains and acquiring companies. Are console game makers poised to make a comeback as the recession ends? As growth returns to the industry in 2010, who will be poised to take market share and define the next-generation of games? Game companies that are doing the disrupting, adapting and growing will be speaking at the conference.
Who’s Got Game contest: Our deadline is fast-approaching for the contest for best game startup. We’ll close off applications for the contest at the end of the day, 5 pm Pacific time, on Friday, Feb. 26, so get your entry forms filled out. The top finalists will appear on stage at GamesBeat@GDC before a panel of expert judges. Those judges will select the winner.
For more conference info, check out our GamesBeat 2010 web site and our Facebook Group for GamesBeat@GDC. Our sponsors include the Georgia Department of Economic Development, PlaySpan, AdMob, and hi5.
Mobil surfing oppstart Skyfire sier ansette nye signaler business skift
Skyfire, som tilbyr en nettleser for rask mobil navigasjon av medierike nettsider, nettopp annonsert at det å ansette Jason Guesman som ny Senior Vice President for salg og markedsføring. Vi vil ikke dekke mye innleie nyheter, særlig ikke-direktør ansetter, men et selskap talsmann forteller meg at dette er et viktig trekk for Skyfire forretningsmodell, fordi den markerer et nytt fokus på å selge Skyfire til bedrifter, ikke forbrukerne. Hittil i Mountain View, California-baserte selskapet har viet sine markedsføringstiltak for å overbevise forbrukerne å laste ned og bruke nettleseren, men det er økende interesse fra produsenter og mobiloperatører som ønsker å installere Skyfire på sine enheter. Blant annet er leseren en måte å komme Flash og Silverlight-teknologi for å spille på mobiltelefoner (Flash har kjent blitt stengt ute av Apples iPhone og iPad, som Skyfire konsernsjef Jeff Glueck diskutert i en kolonne for Venturebeat.). Guesman vil være ansvarlig for voksende salg til disse selskapene. Han er også ment å vokse virksomheten rundt Kolbysoft, selskapet som Skyfire kjøpte tidligere denne måneden. Kolbysoft bygger nettlesere for Googles Android operativsystem. Guesman har erfaring inkluderer seks års senior Vice President og general bestyrer ved Seven Networks. Skyfire har hevet totalt $ 22.8 millioner i venture-finansiering.
What the NY Times can learn from online games
Dave Madden is executive vice president at game company WildTangent.
You’ve probably heard that the New York Times is planning to put up a pay wall next year that will shut off its content to all but paying subscribers. It’s a move the newspaper feels it has to make in order to stay in business. But it’s a move in the wrong direction. Instead the paper should abandon the notion of metering and instead look to the booming online video game business for its inspiration.
Online gaming companies learned long ago that the best way to make money is to shoot for the largest possible audience by eliminating subscription walls. You make the game completely free, get as many players hooked as possible, and then monetize those players through the sale of virtual goods and advertising revenues from brand advertisers. In Asia, game based virtual goods purchases surpassed $4 billion in 2009. In the US, where the business is more nascent, purchases are expected to hit $1.6 billion in 2010. Examples of runaway successes abound. In the month of January, there were 17 different games that all garnered audiences of over 10 million monthly active users on Facebook. The largest, Farmville, with 75 million, was launched just six months ago.
The huge difference between the NYT metered approach and the “Free to Play” gaming model is that, in gaming, users can decide how many virtual goods they want to buy and how they pay for them. No matter what the volume or the payment method, they’re never turned away. The NYT’s metered model is instead an all or nothing approach — you either pay the full subscription price, regardless of what parts of the site you want access to, or you don’t get in at all. The net result will be that the paper will lose readers it could have kept and monetized by other means.
In the short run, the NYT metering plan may mean an initial burst of subscription revenue. But, over time, its daily unique user count will dwindle as users seek out news from other sources with less friction, leading to a downward spiral in ad revenues that will more than offset the subscription gains. That means fewer resources to produce the paper and the website, rendering the online and print subscriptions less and less valuable over time.
Then again, perhaps the paper could take a lesson from online games and roll out a “Free to Read” model supported by digital currency.
A digital currency option – similar to the online games model — would allow the NYT to monetize the 95-99% of readers who are inevitably not willing or able to buy a monthly or annual online subscription. By deploying a digital currency model and creating a per visit and a per premium article price, the NYT can establish a perceived monetary value for its premium news content. Just like in online games, readers will be able to purchase that digital currency in a variety of ways, including virtual currency cards that are sold in retailers nationwide, along with online purchases via credit card. A digital currency approach would allow the Times to keep the a la carte price of a premium article or feature reasonable to the interested reader.
With the barrier to entry and risk level lower than an all-or-nothing subscription, the percent of readers using real currency would be larger. All told, a standard subscription model combined with a digital currency option would monetize approximately 15 to 20% of the total audience. So what about the remaining 80 to 85% of NYT readers who won’t buy a subscription or pay per article?
Because this currency solution would effectively establish a monetary value for NYT content, a value exchange advertising model could then flourish; just as it is doing now in the online games industry.
Readers would be presented with the option of paying for an individual visit or premium article using their digital currency, or they could choose to “earn” the same NYT content compliments of an advertising sponsor in return for viewing an ad on the way into the story. This perceived exchange of value between the NYT reader and the advertiser would create a means through which all NYT readers could be monetized.
In a digital currency world, the publisher is equally happy to have the user pay with coins or by viewing an ad from a sponsor. The revenue lines are about equal, and most importantly, the publisher is not turning anyone away. Advertisers love this model, as engagement levels are higher and consumers associate the brands with adding value to their media experience.
Dave Madden is executive vice president of games media company WildTangent, which operates a fast-growing online games service and the largest game ad network in the world. He also serves on the board of directors of the IAB and is its Games Committee co-chair. WildTangent is pioneering the move to value exchange advertising in the online games space through its unique BrandBoost™ platform for advertiser sponsored game sessions and virtual goods.
You’ve probably heard that the New York Times is planning to put up a pay wall next year that will shut off its content to all but paying subscribers. It’s a move the newspaper feels it has to make in order to stay in business. But it’s a move in the wrong direction. Instead the paper should abandon the notion of metering and instead look to the booming online video game business for its inspiration.
Online gaming companies learned long ago that the best way to make money is to shoot for the largest possible audience by eliminating subscription walls. You make the game completely free, get as many players hooked as possible, and then monetize those players through the sale of virtual goods and advertising revenues from brand advertisers. In Asia, game based virtual goods purchases surpassed $4 billion in 2009. In the US, where the business is more nascent, purchases are expected to hit $1.6 billion in 2010. Examples of runaway successes abound. In the month of January, there were 17 different games that all garnered audiences of over 10 million monthly active users on Facebook. The largest, Farmville, with 75 million, was launched just six months ago.
The huge difference between the NYT metered approach and the “Free to Play” gaming model is that, in gaming, users can decide how many virtual goods they want to buy and how they pay for them. No matter what the volume or the payment method, they’re never turned away. The NYT’s metered model is instead an all or nothing approach — you either pay the full subscription price, regardless of what parts of the site you want access to, or you don’t get in at all. The net result will be that the paper will lose readers it could have kept and monetized by other means.
In the short run, the NYT metering plan may mean an initial burst of subscription revenue. But, over time, its daily unique user count will dwindle as users seek out news from other sources with less friction, leading to a downward spiral in ad revenues that will more than offset the subscription gains. That means fewer resources to produce the paper and the website, rendering the online and print subscriptions less and less valuable over time.
Then again, perhaps the paper could take a lesson from online games and roll out a “Free to Read” model supported by digital currency.
A digital currency option – similar to the online games model — would allow the NYT to monetize the 95-99% of readers who are inevitably not willing or able to buy a monthly or annual online subscription. By deploying a digital currency model and creating a per visit and a per premium article price, the NYT can establish a perceived monetary value for its premium news content. Just like in online games, readers will be able to purchase that digital currency in a variety of ways, including virtual currency cards that are sold in retailers nationwide, along with online purchases via credit card. A digital currency approach would allow the Times to keep the a la carte price of a premium article or feature reasonable to the interested reader.
With the barrier to entry and risk level lower than an all-or-nothing subscription, the percent of readers using real currency would be larger. All told, a standard subscription model combined with a digital currency option would monetize approximately 15 to 20% of the total audience. So what about the remaining 80 to 85% of NYT readers who won’t buy a subscription or pay per article?
Because this currency solution would effectively establish a monetary value for NYT content, a value exchange advertising model could then flourish; just as it is doing now in the online games industry.
Readers would be presented with the option of paying for an individual visit or premium article using their digital currency, or they could choose to “earn” the same NYT content compliments of an advertising sponsor in return for viewing an ad on the way into the story. This perceived exchange of value between the NYT reader and the advertiser would create a means through which all NYT readers could be monetized.
In a digital currency world, the publisher is equally happy to have the user pay with coins or by viewing an ad from a sponsor. The revenue lines are about equal, and most importantly, the publisher is not turning anyone away. Advertisers love this model, as engagement levels are higher and consumers associate the brands with adding value to their media experience.
Dave Madden is executive vice president of games media company WildTangent, which operates a fast-growing online games service and the largest game ad network in the world. He also serves on the board of directors of the IAB and is its Games Committee co-chair. WildTangent is pioneering the move to value exchange advertising in the online games space through its unique BrandBoost™ platform for advertiser sponsored game sessions and virtual goods.
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