2010 Top Ten Technology "finds" at MediaXchange

A greatly reduced 2010 Newspaper Association of America MediaXchange conference was still humming with newspaper executives looking for technology to use in new iterations. Gone from the expo floor were most giant displays and large scale CMS systems.

Instead publishers buzzed around smaller, upstart technology companies whose products are easy to deploy and quick to monetize. After circling the floor for a few days and whittling it down, here's my top ten list of companies you may not "know you don't know":

1. The Daily Deal
The best of the Groupon knock-offs, the Daily Deal, launched just a week ago on SignOnSanDiego.com. It allows people to register for one killer deal a day, tracking how many people have registered until they reach the "tipping point" number the advertiser has agreed to. The process encourages offers to go viral; users repost to social networks until the number is met.

The wildly successful Groupon has the advantage of a national brand and head start for this model - could anyone ever catch up to Facebook?

But the Daily Deal, created by Shoutback Concepts, is sleek and built from the get-go for its first partnership with the San Diego Tribune's online site. The Daily Deal is promoted with a box on the front page of the newspaper and key real estate (not just a bar button) an the front of the site. The split with the newspaper partner is a simple 50/50.

Coupons.com also offers a new daily deal as a me-too product for its local media partners, but there is something more web savvy about a singular brand. This should spread through the local media industry like wild-fire.

2. BooCoo Bucks
BooCoo Bucks is aimed to take on eBay, showing up at NAA with only a prototype... and deals with 240 newspapers who have already "licensed" 6000 of the 30,000 U.S. residential zip codes.

CEO and founder Ranger Data, the company launching the marketplace, is George Willard, Sr., who told me he thinks EBay's maturity has created opportunities; sellers complain about price hikes (sellers of items under $25 got a decrease in the charge from eBay, while sellers in the $25 to $1000 range, saw their rates to sell on the platform double). Plus there is the uncool fact that many sellers just offer a price so it's not really an auction.

So....BooCoo Bucks is an auction-based marketplace specifically developed to partner with media sites who get to keep 50% of the 10% revenue commission on items sold or bought from zip code areas they license; or 25% if one of the buyers or sellers is in someone else's zip code. Media partners are required to promote the marketplace with links and advertising. The soft launch of "newspapers employees and family and friends" is planned for May 15 with the St. Petersburg Times and Cox Newspapers.


3. FanDuel
An interesting ready-to-go game for sports channels is FanDuel.com. The site allows visitors to sports channels to sign up to create a fantasy team for just one game, deposit money and play against five or ten other players for the collective pot. It works like this, register on the site, pick your fantasy team, enter the amount of money you are willing to play for, and the system will pick a group with a comparable amount. If you win, you get the pot, minus 10% that goes to the bookie, that is, the house, ok, well, this is just fantasy pay to play so it's not really a bet at all. The newspaper or other online media partner, splits the take with FanDuel.

Yes, we are talking about real money! Based on the super successful sports channels and contests, and human nature, this looks like a winner.

This is an easy game to deploy; there are no set up or on-going costs, and the games can be promoted with contextual ads and links on sports articles.

So is it gaming? Technically no; fantasy sports have an "exception in the Unlawful Gaming Act as it is deemed a game of skill with a pre-determined prize (that is not based on the outcome)".

So, the game is legal throughout the U.S. except for Maryland, Arizona, Louisiana, Vermont and Montana, which apparently doesn't allow competition with its own lottery. The first partnership with Philly.com just launched (you can sneeze and launch something like this); newspapers share 50% of the take with FanDuel, which is planning to expand the game so that multiple people can play against each other in groups, with bigger pots.


4. Outbrain
An unique way of monetizing unsold inventory has stuck with me, mostly because one of the themes of the conference was "how to curate, combine and make convenient" content...while making money.

Outbrain looks like a "related topics" area, works like a "recommended topics" areas and, well, pays.

Recommendations much like Amazon's are actually CPC content links for advertisers like iVillage and USA Today.

Outbrain splits the revenues with newspaper partners. The marketing director says the links have click-through of 5 to 10%, at least double other forms of click through advertising. This is one of the most interesting forms of contextual advertising I've seen which competes with Google AdSense. The bad news is that it takes traffic away from the site.

5. TNS or Kantar (depending on the day of the week)
If I had one service to buy, it might still be Kantar Media, the renamed TNS media monitoring service that lets you go online to find out what, where and how much each cable advertiser in your marketplace is buying, including showing creative, day parts and... basically the advertiser is naked and it's up to you to capitalize on this information.

Why is this important? As a local media publisher I actually looked at the service a couple of years back, there was no one on the sales team who would really sink their teeth into trying to shift local broadcast advertisers to print.

But today, it's another story, quick and dirty video production software like Mixpo and Jivox mean that any local media company can scrape the cable video ad, reformat it for online in seconds (ok, minutes...), and pitch an interactive campaign that includes the legacy campaign and makes it interactive!

It has always been hard to actually find cable advertisers; unlike newspaper advertisers who can easily be sourced, to figure out how much they are paying and what they are pitching.

So now there is no excuse not to go after cable; if you have traffic, reps and programs, bite the bullet and buy the service.

6. Another new take on an old issue is co-op revenues. MultiAD has an interactive service that lets media reps help retailers manage co-op dollars. It's clean, slick and simple to use. Not a book, an interactive site with multi-functions you can use.

I won't go into the importance of co-op dollars, even to point out how a number of local contests and events require digging for dollars in new areas such as home improvement. Let's just say knowing where co-op dollars are is a required skill for owning your market.

7. RAM
Cheryl Dell, publisher of the Sacremento Bee gave an entire presentation on how she has used RAM to research each area of transformation of the Bee. She views her role as to create the paper she would create if it was started today.

So every question from "what stories are we not covering" to "how good is our customer service" is answered by objective research provided by RAM, which uses an "opt in" model and gives immediate feedback.

8. Classifieds as a service
A couple of interesting company offered classifieds "upgrades" that allow local media sites to compete with other sites with added services. Providing what Craigslist doesn't and never will is key positioning for classifieds verticals. The top two I liked in this category are AdPerfect, which has solved the problem of uploading car images in a neat solution that has had transformative results for the Vancouver Sun.

Another company I liked from the show E-renter.com creator of Tenant Central, a service that qualifies renters who respond to classifieds listings based on their credit score. The company works on any classifieds software platform. The service checks renters backgrounds and delivers leads qualified to the landlord's specifications. Checks can also include criminal records. The first two partnerships are with the Las Vegas Review Journal and the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

9. Beyond exotic ads - into e-commerce

Last but not least, an advertising product that got a lot of attention is from LCe-Commerce solutions: an "e-combanner" which looks like a banner but opens up in to a shopping cart. By clicking on one of then items displayed on the banner, the customer sees the shopping cart and can complete the transaction through PayPal or Google Check-out.

10. YouData
I'm adding this company in from the CNPA conference, same week on the other side of the country. The twisted logic of YouData's ad model is worth pursuing do to one thing: it is currently generating revenues at an average of $250 plus CPM, and already in action in its first media partnership, the Press Enterprise in Riverside, California.

Still with me? Here's how it works: Visitors sign up to be paid for looking at ads that they select by completing a survey. A key component is that these consumers never give out their identity to YouData or the media company. The opt-in ads only appear by request, so the ads are sold on a per impression basis at 25 cents on average, instead of a CPM basis, which is how the effective rate gets so high.

As the ads are served - on both the sellers and other partner sites - consumers have the option to click on the ads targeted to them and get paid, usually in the range of 10 to 15 cents. There is even a Las Vegas sounding chime as they earn money, which goes directly into their bank through pay pal, and a thermometer that totals up all the earnings.

CEO, Jim Prather says consumers on average complete 85 different self-describe traits and that 70,000 consumers are now signed up on 400 content sites including small blogs and, as of two weeks ago, the Press Enterprise. There are about 150 advertisers, sold mostly by YouData staff, which is moving to a model of partnering with media that have sales staff. The model is a revenue share, with the selling media getting the lion's share of the split.

Prather says some advertisers are on their 7th and 8th campaigns, with click through rates of 95% and conversions, in terms of a sales, coupon redemption, or newsletter sign up, in the 5 to 10% range.

That's it for now. I will be updating this post with links and contacts over the weekend.

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