Mobile Advertising Interview: Christian Cadeo, Admob Asia Pacific

Christian is no stranger to mobile advertising working with AdMob, one of the world’s largest mobile advertising network, who recently published its quarterly Southeast Asian Mobile Metrics Report:. Mobile traffic in Malaysia increased to 161.4 million in the first quarter of this year…
Mobile is touted as the key driver for Social Media. In Malaysia, Maxis has announced its intention to be an integrated player, side-stepping jargon like triple play and quad play, insisting instead on a holistic ambition with data, voice, entertainment and more… what sort of opportunities do these present to marketers?

With such an approach, more consumers will jump on to the mobile bandwagon, mainly due to the entertainment offerings by mobile operators. The number of adopters will also keep growing as more interesting content becomes available – improved data plans, smartphones, rich mobile content – which media and mobile phone companies are creating. This is still in the early stages, but is growing very fast.
What this means for marketers is, they can better reach their customers through the use of richer content, targeting a wider range of consumers without losing the ability to cater individual messages for each one. There is neither compromise of content nor reach.

What about Social Networking on mobile?

According to ComScore, 77.5% of the web population in Malaysia can be reached by FaceBook. According to FaceBook, about one fourth of the people using the social media platform regularly access FB on their mobiles. Given these metrics, it would be only a matter of time before brands start developing content specifically for social networks, further encouraging more people to get online on social networking sites using their mobiles.

Mobile provides the ability to target by site, phone model, demographics and location, all of which are key to advertisers…

By serving highly interactive ads, a marketer can build interest for the brand. Surveys can also be done on mobile platforms. These give marketers a better understanding of what the consumer which would, in turn, result in better quality ads.
AdMob serves ads which link to mobile pages. These pages bring another dimension to just standard banner ads, offering more comprehensive content that engage customers and ensure better click-through. An understanding of the lives and needs of the target customer and being able to connect with them emotionally is key to building the relationship.

Tell us about services like Lovegety in Japan which contain social-media elements allowing users to broadcast their live locations to a network of potential profile matches, alerting them when a matchmaking possibility is nearby…

Location-based social media, such as a Lovegety and Foursquare, open up opportunities for both consumer and marketer. Consumers get to access information of actual places as they visit these places and, this allows marketers to leave information in a cloud, i.e. advertisements.

Privacy issues and permission-based marketing remain an issue for mobile. What is the latest update on this concern?

There will always be an argument over these two issues, but without insightful consumer information, consumers will probably only get ads that either make no sense or incite no interest from them.
The ability to track consumer decisions may be deemed as an invasion of privacy, due to the use of private information to predict consumer choices. Trust is an important factor in consumers accepting content and we can build this by giving them more relevant information.

Source: http://www.adoimagazine.com/newhome/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5954&catid=1&Itemid=5

Collecting Rent Payments and Managing Properties Online

Collecting rent payments online is both quick and convenient for both tenants and landlords. There are also quite a few online resources to assist you with this task.

The most basic way to accept rental payments online is through Paypal. Paypal allows the tenant to pay via their bank account or credit card. Setting up a merchant account through Paypal is easy and free. Depending on the amount of monthly rent collected, the fees start at about 2.9% for this service.

T-ReX Global has just recently rolled out their online rent payment system which is fully integrated with their popular property management software. The basic software is free with multiple properties and rent payments being an additional fee.

Buildium has an online property management program with online rent payment specifically for landlords who have less than 50 properties. Plans start at about $10/month.

Quicken Rental Property Manager is a favorite with new landlords. It is easy to set up and begin using right away. It is limiting in that it does not allow you to upload pictures or documents. Of course it is easily compatible with Turbo-tax which is a plus for those who use the popular tax preparation program. The cost for the program on the Intuit website is $149.99.

Landlordmax is a feature filled program that can create a report analyzing just about anything with regards to your rental business - perfect for the micro-manager. The cost on the website is $165 for the download.

-By Tina Merritt (http://www.trumpuniversity.com/blog)

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Malaysian Payments Company MOL Global Snaps Up Friendster

We heard reports that Friendster was going to shopping itself to an Asian technology company but tonight, the news was released that MOL Global, a Malaysian payments company, has purchased social network Friendster. The full press release is below. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but we’ve heard that the purchase price is around $100 million.
Friendster, which was founded in 2001, has raised over $45 million in venture capital to date, and is sitting on some potentially lucrative IP. The acquisition makes sense because while Friendster is no longer hot in the U.S., it’s most definitely still has members in the Asia/Pacific region. The social network, which just rolled out a much-needed redesign, appointed Richard Kimber as its new CEO, who used to head Sales and Operations in South East Asia for Google.

MOL Global and Friendster already had a partnership power the payments ecosystem of the Friendster Wallet and its payments platform.
MOL Retail and Payment Channels and Leading Online Social Network Combine to Form Massive Content Distribution and E-commerce Platform in Asia for Over 100 Million Users
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ — MOL Global Pte. Ltd. (”MOL Global”), an affiliate of leading online payment solutions provider MOL AccessPortal Berhad (”MOL”), and Friendster, Inc. (”Friendster”), the operator of a top global web site based on traffic and a leading social network in Asia, announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which MOL Global will acquire 100% of Friendster. The principal shareholder of MOL is Tan Sri Vincent Tan, the Chairman and CEO of Berjaya Corporation Berhad, a leading, diversified Malaysian conglomerate that has annual revenues in excess of US$1.8 billion. Following the acquisition, the operations of MOL and Friendster will be combined to create Asia’s largest end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network, pairing MOL’s offline retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster’s large online footprint, social network and user community in Asia.

“The merger with Friendster will continue to transform the social networking industry, combining a highly intuitive and successful social media site and online marketing channel with an integrated payment platform and content network which includes games, goods, gifts, music and video. We are creating a unique company that will be well positioned to provide content to a huge, regional user base, here in Southeast Asia,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, president and chief executive officer of MOL.
MOL uses the leverage of a network of over 500,000 physical and virtual payment channels across 75 countries worldwide to collect payments for content and services. Its core markets are Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and India. MOL has relationships with over 70 online game publishers that have a suite of over 200 online game titles. It also has partnerships with music, movie and video content owners and distributors across the region.
“Friendster and MOL are both industry pioneers and are close partners. This combination is a natural progression of our relationship and will be an industry-changing event,” said Richard Kimber, chief executive officer at Friendster. “The new combined entity gives Friendster the kind of financial backing, retail distribution, and e-commerce infrastructure that will enable us to accelerate our strategy and create a locally relevant, fun experience for our users in Asia, both on and offline.”

In 2003, Friendster pioneered social networking, and today is a leading web site in Asia, with over 75 million registered users and over 90 percent of daily traffic coming from the region. Asian youths have embraced Friendster and use it as their primary means of connecting to and keeping in touch with friends, self-expression, sharing content and news with friends, and as a source of entertainment. Friendster users also enjoy local music, gifting, photo sharing, online games, and using Friendster on their mobile devices. All of these are incorporated in Friendster’s product suite and will be further developed over time with MOL, specifically with Asian youths in mind.
Friendster and MOL entered a global partnership in October of this year where MOL was appointed to provide an integrated payments platform, as a foundation for The Friendster Wallet and The Friendster Gift Shop, for Friendster’s users. The new combined entity will now build upon that initial set of products to deliver a content distribution network and e-commerce platform, enabling a wide array of content to be distributed to Friendster’s community and monetize via micro-transactions using MOL’s payment platform. MOL will use the leverage of its physical distribution networks to localize and extend the online reach of social networking in Southeast Asia to the physical world through Tan Sri Vincent Tan’s substantial assets across Malaysia and the region, including retail franchises in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia such as Starbucks, 7-Eleven, Borders, Krispy Kreme, Wendy’s and Papa John’s Pizza, just to name a few.
Friendster recently launched a new brand and web site packed with new features representing a significant milestone in the company’s history and further signifying the company’s evolution to focus on the Asian youth market. The notable changes include a new fun-centric brand, and a redesigned web site with a focus on local relevance, fun and simplicity.
The combined entity will maintain offices in various locations, around the world, including Mountain View, CA (USA), the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. Ganesh Kumar Bangah will become the Group Chief Executive Officer of the combined entity while Richard Kimber will become the Non-Executive Chairman.

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twitter Offered $500,000 For 24-Hour Ad Space!

In what could possibly be the largest offer for a single Internet banner advertisement, Twitter has just been offered a princely sum for just one day of advertising on the site.

Marketing company uSocial.net, who provide a service selling followers on Twitter, have just offered the social media site $500,000 U.S. dollars if Twitter will allow them to place a banner ad on the site for a time period of 24 hours.

“While half-a-million dollars may seem like a large amount to invest in one banner for one day, we believe that the investment will be more than worth it.” Said uSocial.net CEO Leon Hill.

Twitter as yet do not offer any kind of advertising on the site, so the move by uSocial may well end up leading to some of the first paid ads on the site. However, it is unsure as to whether Twitter will respond favourably as they may not agree with the content being advertised.

More information on the service uSocial is hoping to promote on Twitter can be found by going to http://usocial.net/twitter_marketing

Source: (ADOI DAILY FRESH NEWS, Adoimagazine.com)

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